I will be the first to admit that I am a total fucking mess right now. Although I have been preparing for my brother's passing for over a year, the totality of the event, the enormous pain of the loss, is overwhelming. I am worthless right now, can't focus, can't work, can't put one foot in front of the other, cry often.
For one reason or another I'm not medicating either, no booze, no weed, no nothing. Experiencing the shock full force, not inclined to numb. I have long wondered how I would deal with the sad eventuality and to be honest, I am still wondering.
It's ridiculous really. Not like I'm the lone ranger. I did a search and the best estimation is that 107 billion people have lived on this earth since man crawled out of the garden and eve took a bite out of that damn apple. What percentage of those folks had brothers? Got to figure at least a third of them if not more. 30 billion people or more have lost their brothers and dealt with it. I have to as well.
I took pictures of these two blooms this morning. I didn't measure but I would guess the flowers are eighteen to twenty inches across. Very lovely.
Their magnificence is fleeting, the blooms last not even a single day, and then, gone forever.
The cab driver who picked me up in Toronto at 3:30 in the morning to take me to Pearson Airport was a Falasha, an ancient tribe of Ethiopian jews.
He had done his compulsory military service in Israel but wasn't very happy there, for reasons I don't need to go into now.
I shared my grief with him. My sister Barbara recently remarked how good I am with strangers, it's people in my normal circles I have difficulties with. I know every cabbie's life story within minutes.
This one listened to my tale and then somberly told me his, he lost fourteen members of his family in a single bus accident in Africa, on their way to a picnic by the lake.
If you are a human in this life you are going to experience great pain before it is all over.
