He Ain't Heavy

December 21, 2016. That's the prominent date on the oversized, zig-zag folded, state issued, legal document that I held in my hand. It had, up until now, been in its folded state, residing in an overstuffed manila envelope along with other important letters and forms and personal effects, that only see the light of day upon demand or whimsy. The only reason I held it today is because of demand. Proof of my brother's death was needed, and this document is proof.

I hadn't looked at a copy of his death certificate in a while. It isn't something I want to do. But closing utility services warrants it. Cancelling bank accounts warrants it. Dealing with an insurance company warrants it. In this case, dealing with the insurance company has warranted looking at several other death certificates as well. The beneficiaries listed on his policy, my grandmother and my sister, had passed on before him and I had to provide proof of their deaths too. Just as a reminder, I would suggest you make sure your life insurance policy is up to date. Just saying.

Holding those pieces of paper was a heavy thing. Each one represented a loved one that's gone. Each one held information designating a beginning and an end; a who, a when, a where, a how. But what it didn't hold is an answer to the question, "Why?" That answer won't be found on those certificates or any other folded piece of paper in a place of storage, whether it's the envelope busting at the seams or one of these boxes of his stuff I sorted through not too long ago.

So many boxes...

Memories contained in glossy images; highly defined in brilliant black and white, or the grainy color of a kid's cheap 110 camera, carefully stored between paper and cellophane in stained and outdated photo albums or packed away in this scattering of boxes, snug in their paper packages that they came home from the developers in...compete with those stored in my head...and that's all that's left. That's it. The ones printed on paper are more clear and more abundant than the still frames imprinted in my fuzzy memory. That's really not surprising. There's been a lot of living going on; too much living to remember every single vivid detail, much less the details that are barely visible through a thin veil of fog.

My fingers feel like they've got several year's worth of dust on them and I'm surprised that I'm not sneezing. These boxes, which are filled with memories; memories of mine; memories belonging to people I know; memories belonging to others as obscure as the relatives I've never met pictured in these memories, actually do have years of dust built up. I've never put dusting high on the list of importance when it comes to housekeeping. I just might rethink that stance.

What wasn't wanted or needed was put aside for disposal of some sort. If an item could be useful to someone, it became destined for donation. If it was less desired, it became destined for the trash can or the burn barrel. Everything else went into plastic totes. Twenty plastic totes. Twenty plastic totes that I had to carry with me the whole 540-mile trip from Florida to my home in Tennessee. The whole trip home with twenty plastic totes, some stuffed into every available space in my Mazda 2, the rest in the undersized 1974 Sears Allstate clamshell utility trailer faithfully in tow behind me. All that and  two bookshelves strapped to the top of the trailer's clamshell top. On that trip home, my little car could tell that it was weighed down. Those memories in boxes were heavy.

If you knew my brother, you knew he was a simple man with simple pleasures. It didn't take a whole lot to make him happy. He had his Zippo lighter collection, complete with customer catalogs displaying what lighters were available that year, and collector's catalogs showing styles made and how much they were worth. You knew he liked camels. And if it was a Camel© Zippo, well, stand back. John Deere memorabilia, Hot Wheels and Matchbox scale model cars (most of them Volkswagens, because he knew I liked them), and little wind-up tin trinkets filled several boxes. Movies on VHS and DVD filled a bookshelf and stacks of LPs took up the floorspace under a window. So many things told me sides of him that I both knew and did not know. The things that showed me who he was weighed heavy on my mind. I should have known more of this stuff about him than I did.

It came to me that we spent more time apart than together. The greatest barrier was distance. I was the one who went away to college. I was the one who stayed away after that continued education ship had sailed into the horizon. I was the one who fell in love and started a family, an even stronger reason for the continuance of distance. I was the one who found the times being able to bridge that distance become fewer and with more time passing between the gaps. I'm the one who fell into complacency; the one who actually had the resources to make that distance feel closer and still, I was complacent.

People told me he thought the world of me. They would say that he would brag on any of my achievements, no matter how small I viewed them. To him they were big. And I suppose they were, and I didn't realize it.

If you knew him, you knew he was a big ol' boy. Always had been, at least after his adolescent years. I've had my own bouts with my weight. Up and down, slim and round. It's never ending. Ironically, he used to call me "Fat Boy" when he was at any given time, at least twice my weight. He seemed to keep whatever weight he put on. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it. He was obese. Officially obese. "Morbid Obesity" is listed as a contributing factor to his health on this death certificate. Right down there in the "Notes" section, forever as an aside to the real person that he was.

I am the worst at getting distracted while trying to sort through stuff. The allure of looking at every picture in the numerous packs of developed pictures totally trumps deciding what to keep and what to let go. There's so many pictures, some with me in them, but the majority of them were just snippets of his daily life. Pictures of blooming cacti, magnolia trees, and rose bushes. Photos of things he liked while on his numerous trips to Wal Mart; photos of probably every single VW his eye would spy. Sorting through the pictures was like a timeline that was out of order. And what I finally realized was that it was a timeline that showed me more of who he was during my time "away." Even if I didn't have the actual memory, I had his collective memory in hundreds of glossy photos and everything else in those twenty plastic totes. And man, that's heavy.

March 6, 1970. That's the date on my mother's headstone. The same car wreck that took her life damaged those who were left behind.  With a broken leg and severe cuts to my face by broken glass, I was probably the one with the least amount of long-term effects. My broken leg mended and the glass that had embedded under the surface of my skin eventually worked its way out. The cuts on my face healed, but the scars last to this very day. Two of my earliest childhood memories are the card I got on my 5th birthday, and the day the glass under my skin on the back of my head was discovered and removed. There's a nice little spot back there where no hair grows.

The actual extent of my siblings' injuries were unknown to me. But I have long been told that Tod suffered head trauma that affected him his whole life. And, as he was the oldest sibling, he carried the memory our mother. The head trauma, coupled with what I suspect to be untreated mental issues that came with dealing with grief at such a young age, kept him behind in mental development. He was not stupid. He was smart enough to finish high school, hold a job while he was still able to work, and make sure bills were paid from month to month. He may have driven a car at some point, but he never had a license. He could talk for hours about something he was passionate about, but would be easily frustrated by the smallest thing and either clam up or lose his cool and then clam up. He could be social, but I honestly believe he wouldn't have been able to live on his own without periodic prompting and assistance. You know, up until a few years ago, I was unaware of the indicators of someone on the autism spectrum. But thanks to someone special, who has a son who is autistic, I know a little more. Still not enough, but enough to make me wonder if my brother was "unofficially" autistic. And deep down, I know I loved him, I surely did. And, oh my...he was far from a family secret, but there's a chance I stayed away because I couldn't or didn't want to carry that weight. Heavy, man.

I'll probably never know the answers.

Another box came back home with me. It sat on the back bench seat of my car the entire trip. When it was given to me, it was surprisingly heavy. I had never held someone's ashes before. I assume they're sort of like volcanic ash; dense and heavy. I also assume that the total weight of the cremated ashes are only a fraction of the weight of the person cremated. I'll have to Google that sh...stuff.

It's heavy, this sense of missing and the should haves, could haves, and would haves; the realizations that came too late; the knowledge of now knowing what was once unknown; the fact that my scant memories are all that I have, aside from the twenty plastic totes filled with his memories. It will never be enough. I think of the desperation that he surely felt as he died with only medical professionals there fighting to keep him with us. There was nothing any of his loved ones could have done, so I'll nip this right in the bud. But just that one thought...man, it's heavy.

I carried that sealed box from my car and slid it under my bed. I'll do something special with its contents one day. What I do, I don't know, but I'll do it someday when things aren't so heavy...like that box is.

But that box is my brother, and he ain't heavy, he's my...well, you know the rest.