Goodnight, dear brother

It's been a cruel summer. Just before midnight last night, my husband's younger brother took his last breath. There are the brothers on swings as youngsters in Antigua so many moons ago. Bruce, now 59, suffered a massive stroke last week Wednesday and was rushed to the hospital. His oldest brother and several cousins took turns sitting at his bedside, but he never regained consciousness. He was here in full one day, and the next he was not. My husband has now lost two siblings within the course of a single year. He is very submerged today, which is how he deals with sorrow. He has to disconnect for a bit to survive it. I know this about him, but it does leave me feeling a bit adrift with my own grief. 

One of the cousins wrote this morning in the Arrindell family chat, in which our brother was always a very lively participant, that "We know Bruce is at peace and deep in conversation with our ancestors." Bruce had a morning radio talk show in Antigua in which he took on social and political issues at home and abroad. I imagine he is indeed continuing the commentary. At least, it is a comfort to me to think so. My children are gutted, my son a bit submerged like his dad, my daughter's tears flowing freely, more like her mom. Families, man. We all revert to our fundamental coping mechanisms. Whatever we might think of them, we are all just trying to find our way through.

Tomorrow my husband and I will have been married for 37 years, and will have been together for 40 years. We have been with each other twice as long now as those first two decades of our lives growing up on different islands. Here is a picture of our two families of origin taken on our wedding day. I'm not sure if I'll be back to post more tomorrow, because this anniversary is a somber one. All but three people in the photo are now gone from us, at least in body, though never in memory. On his side, my husband now stands alone. Bruce, our brother who crossed the veil last night, was our best man, the one who looks so much like my husband. Here is a post I wrote about what may well have been Bruce's defining work in this life. May the tumult of the world now release him, and may he know the lightness of being that often escaped him, that escapes most of us, in this earth school where the lessons can be so hard. Rest now, dear brother. Rise in joy.