Grief
Remembering the Dead
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
Today, my children and I went to the cemetery. There we met Veteran’s who were collecting old worn flags and replacing them with new ones on the graves of their fallen comrades. It was raining, the cemetery was old, the tombstones were often broken, illegible or were often a piece of flagstone with a flag marker next to it. My son had more fun then he has had all week.
Nicky sang to himself a little ditty, “American Flag, AAaamerican FLLLLAAAAGS!”. He waved Old Glory and brought the battered and tattered flags to me and I carried them in the stroller. We reported the names to a Vietnam Marine Veteran who checked the known names off a list. My daughter cooed and smiled at the old Veteran’s and tried to slurp rain water out of her stroller.
I enjoyed watching my kids being happy. I talked to Nicky about some of the names we read. One man had been a bugler, some in Korea like my grandfather, others in Vietnam like my father in law. There were many from the Civil War. There were many names we couldn’t read, whose head stones were broken and whose families no longer cared for the grave, for whatever reason.
But there were Veterans, walking up and down in the rain and taking down old flags, replacing with new ones and checking off names. No one left behind.
They asked me why I was there, I told them who I was: A Gold Star Sister. That answered that, and they thanked me for coming and bringing my children. I thanked them because they served my country before I was born.
But that didn’t really answer why I was there. I was there because one day, I hope that someone will still put a flag on my brother’s grave. One day I hope someone checks his name to make sure it is getting the honor he is due. I want someone to look at his date of birth and his date of death and do the math. To realize he died just short of turning 24 years old and he did so for his country.
Graves were surrounded by family members, and one day I will die and join my brother. And when I am gone who will bring a broom and dust of his grave, leave a stone to show someone still cared enough to visit and of course, to place a flag by his name? Will there be a an old soldier? One who fought long ago who comes by once a year to check on his brothers and sisters?
There will be someone, and maybe it will be a soldier, or maybe a soldier’s sister, who is afraid her brother will also be disregarded. Maybe a hundred years ago, a sister tucked her brother into the ground and hoped he would never be forgotten.
I will not forget, and I will teach my children the importance of remember the dead.
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter
With a Little Help from My Friends
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
I watch my daughter throw her body down on the floor. She lifts her head to scream and then pounds her hands and feet on the ground. It is a classic tantrum performance. And though she does this act with such precision that I can’t help but want to laugh, I do not. I do not laugh because my daughter is in pain and need and she has no other way of telling me.
I ask her if she is hungry-shakes head no, is she thirsty-shakes head no, does she need to be cuddled-YES.
It seems silly. A cliche event in the life of motherhood but there you have it; a child communicating that she needs help. She doesn’t do it with grace or dignity. She is unabashed at her discomfort with the world and will make sure we all know it. She knows no shame in being upset or sad or uncomfortable. She only knows that IF she shows you she feels bad you WILL help her to feel better.
What a remarkable idea. Telling one another that we feel pain, discomfort and even anguish with the expectation that telling someone will get us HELP.
My brother’s name is Joshua. There are many Hebrew translations of his name but my favorite is “A crying out to G-d”. It is also translated as “Salvation”. The reason for two seemingly dissimilar meanings is clear if you have studied Hebrew (which I have). In Hebrew, often a word means one thing AND its response, or its understood that if in context something is asked it is ALSO replied to. For example, the word SHEMA means “Listen, Hear and Obey” as in “If you were listening to me, you would have heard and then obeyed”. In this way, “A crying out to G-d means that G-d will answer and you will be given Salvation”. Remarkable huh?
My brother did not cry out. Not in his life or at the time of his death. He made his own salvation. He did not like to ask for help but was happy to offer it. When he did ask it was of a very few. Josh would not ask for help unless he thought it was something you could give. I admire that but at the same time, I wonder how much more we could have helped one another if we only knew where to begin.
Before he deployed, I told my brother some things about our childhood. Details he was not previously aware of and they seemed to bring him peace. I wish I had known sooner and been able to tell him. I wish I could have told him how much I relied on him to get through a day, just knowing with him in this world I was never really alone.
Now Josh is gone and I have learned a hard lesson in an uneasy way. I need help, I need it almost daily. I go to therapy and I take medications and I read the books assigned by my doctor but in the end and I mean up until MY very end: I will not get over my brother’s death. I can’t. And that will leave me with a difficult life filled with painful moments, moments which can only be eased if I tell you that I hurt and you give me your aid. I am in mourning which has no end date.
If when I am in pain, if it seems the world is caving in on all sides and I want to throw myself on the ground to scream and hit and kick, don’t laugh, don’t run, but instead, give a little help. Because I get by with a little help from my friends.
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter.
Lost
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
I lost something the other day. It was something small but very important to me. I lost the locket I had made with my Gold Star lapel pin. The bevel broke and I am fairly sure it is somewhere in my house. With the added trouble of a two year old who may have helped misplace it I am at a loss over my lost item. Where is it? Will I find it again? How could I have been so careless?
But, then I think, well it is just a thing. It probably will turn up in the next month. If it does not surface, I had it insured and I can have another one made with only a deductible and a scolding from my husband.
I did not lose my brother. He is not somewhere in the back of my closet in the spare room we never use. He isn’t misplaced. He isn’t replaceable. He is dead.
When someone asks me “How I lost my brother?”, I feel very uncomfortable. I know they mean well, I know they are trying to soften the blow of the real question (How did your brother DIE?). But the truth is, I did not lose my brother. It wasn’t my turn to watch him and I turned my back for just one second….then he was gone. No, my brother volunteered to do a dangerous job, and in doing that job, he was killed. I can’t emphasize how much that does not equate to the word ‘lost’.
When I am asked about my ‘lost’ brother, I get defensive, which really means I get snarky (love that word!). The response is, “Oh, he isn’t lost, I know right where he is, the hole in the ground where I put him”. Or, maybe something like, “I lost him while we were playing hide and seek, he is a sore loser and went all the way to Afghanistan so I wouldn’t find him”.
I mostly don’t say those things, not aloud anyway. Like I said, I KNOW that people are trying to be kind, we just aren’t very good at it. We want to soften the blow of harsh unchanging words like died, death, killed. Only, the words we use do not mean what has happened. I didn’t lose my brother, he did not pass me like two ships in the night, his life ended and mine continues.
When you say lost, I know that you are uncomfortable with what we are talking about. So am I, friend. It is uncomfortable to wake up every day knowing I am again a little older than the previous 15 months difference that separated my birth and my brother’s. It hurts, but your words do not add to my pain.
There is no nice way to say that someone you loved has died. I recommend that you don’t spend too much time trying. Instead, try asking me about my brother’s life, about his smile, or my favorite shared memory. Ask me about how he lived. Because I will never be snarky when answering those questions.
He is my brother and I can never lose him, but I will be happy to share him with you!
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter.
You Can’t Pick on My Little Brother
This week my blog is being taken over by Jessica Charles. This from Jessica: I am Corporal Joshua Alexander Harton’s Big Sister. I am his sister and I protected him his whole life. That is until September 18th, 2010 when a bullet from Taliban’s rifle went through his neck, cutting his carotid artery, moving through his torso and destroying organs and finally leaving his body at the left hip and shattering his Kevlar armor. I am Josh’s sister and I need you to know that my little brother is dead and my epic life will never be the same again.
*****
Since I was 15 months old, I have been a Big Sister. It was my first identity. Of course you can say I was a daughter first, but that is a fairly passive role. Big Sister on the other hand, was involved. It involved being teacher, friend, confidant, tormentor and of course protector. My mother likes to tell people how I would sit by my infant brother and scream at ANYONE who came near. A cat passing by his crib would get an earful of, “That’s MY brother”. At my brother’s baptism I even shouted those words at the pastor as he introduced my brother to the congregation. Yes, in my mind, I came before God when it came to that little boy.
Then, September 18th, 2010 God decided that Josh, my Boshy, was supposed to leave me. At sunset in a place more like Hell then anything we can imagine, my brother, an SPC in the United States Army, was killed while defending a convoy from Taliban terrorists. It was quick and dare I hope painless?
I received the news first from my grandmother on Sunday, September 19th. I answered the phone and she was crying and I thought, “Dear Lord, is she having a heart attack and calling me instead of 911?”.
“Josh is Dead” she said.
“What?”
Josh is Dead”.
In the Bible we read about the wailing and tearing of clothes when a loved one dies. It seems overly dramatic, even for the Bible. I wailed. I tore at my hair and my clothes. My husband took the phone. Then a knock at the door told us that the official word was here. Two men in dress uniform were here to inform me that my brother was dead.
Shock, despair, grief all of the usual thing followed. I couldn’t look at my 3 year old son because he looked like my brother’s childhood self. I was 3 months pregnant and could not take anything to numb the pain. At my brother’s Wake he was toasted by all except me. There was this sharp pain every time I breathed. And a question I could not answer, “Am I still a Big Sister?”.
Twenty months have passed since then. I have a beautiful daughter. Her Hebrew name is T’shua meaning Salvation, the same as Joshua. I am a wife and mother of two but I know that I can never stop being Josh’s Big Sister.
Big Sister is still an involved role. Now it involves sharing his story and protecting his extended family, the U.S. Military. The men and women who choose to serve this country are fighting for us out there in the world. The very least I can do is fight for them here at home.
Support our troops, not just with words but with actions. Shake their hands and hug them when you see them. Send a letter, send a care package, send a job their way. Because when you don’t, when you ignore our Active Military and our Veterans, when you tell them they have PTSD but you are not a doctor, when you look at them like animals instead of heroes; I will be there and I will stand between you and them. Because I am a Big Sister, and you can’t pick on my little brother.
*****
You can visit Jessica’s blog at “Always His Sister.” And you can follow her on Twitter.
A Death I Don’t Understand
A friend of mine disappeared. I mean, left with only the clothes on his back. Borrowed clothes, at that. He left his phone. His wallet. Everything. And he just went away.
Several days passed. Then weeks. Months. Nothing. No word. A friend of ours traveled on foot, looking for him. Others pressed the police. The media. Anyone. To pay attention.
We’d have to wait for the snow to melt. Then he might be found. That’s what they were told.
The snow melted. Heavy rain fell. The city flooded.
A week later someone found him. Sixty miles or so away. His body had traveled all that way. In the river.
Too many details muddy my mind. I don’t want to think about the way they found him. How I was told he looked. That his own father couldn’t identify him.
His death. Announced on the six o’clock news. His Facebook account. Posts deleted until the day before he vanished. Went missing. Even his last two posts deleted. His cries out to us. Cries that most of us didn’t even hear. See. Know.
I’ll die and no one will care. He’d said. No one will come to my funeral.
His ashes spread. A few friends gathered for a quiet memorial. Invitation only.
I couldn’t go.
I tried to honor him by listening to a few songs he liked. By reading his poems. Looking through our messages about religion and art and literature.
But I didn’t get to say good-bye. Haven’t been able to mourn.
Somewhere. Maybe in my heart. Or soul. I don’t really believe he’s gone. I know he is. But I am having a hard time accepting it.
I see a tall guy with black hair. Smoking outside a coffee shop. Walking down the sidewalk with a hood up. I think it might be him until I remember. No. It isn’t him. He’s gone. Dead. Found floating.
I get sick to my stomach.
Wish that I could go back to thinking that he left. Started over. Got himself over to Japan. Reached his dream. With headphones on his ears and new poetry streaming from his mouth.
And. And I wish he knew. I wish he knew that he was loved.
That he knew how broken my heart is.
And how I can’t cry. As much as I want to. I can’t.
And I don’t understand it.
A friend of mine disappeared. He died. And I don’t know how to grieve.
I can’t figure out how to mourn a death I can’t realize.
A death I don’t understand.
*****
Today’s guest post was written by Susie Finkbeiner. Susie is a novelist and short story writer from West Michigan. Her first novel “Paint Chips” released in 2013 and she is currently working on her second novel and a collection of short stories. When Susie isn’t writing, she is busy as the fiction editor for Burnside Writers Collective as well as Unbound Magazine. Susie is a wife, mother of three, and avid reader. She enjoys time with her family, coffee dates with good friends, and quiet moments to read and write. Website:www.susiefinkbeiner.
