(a funny pic of Brando when he was in NOLA with my dad, visiting his Aunt, a couple of months before he died)
*disclaimer: The post is a little angry, not funny like the pic...I put the pic in to remember to smile through the sorrow of this month
A precious friend of mine commented about her own sadness linked to May, using the SOS Mayday reference and it really struck a chord with me. Help is exactly what I need. In the rhetorical sense, not like I need someone to come over and help me...I'm far past that being possible, believe me. But, May drowns me. In fact, I dreamt last night that I was driving and the freeway ran into the ocean, the second time in as many weeks that I've had that same dream and it's a recurring theme. I don't know if it's because I'm suffocating from the sleep apnea and it's carrying over into my dreams or if it has some other meaning, like my fear (and, somehow, fascination) of bridges and massive bodies of water, but it freaks me the frick out. It's probably some sign that I'm drowning in avoidance or some crap. At any rate, SOS, this ship is going down.
I HATE May. Not like I hate Brussels' sprouts (I'm begining to come around to them, again) or I hate lasagna (duh, the international dish of death, served at memorial services the world over) or tuna helper or hate being overweight (which I loathe), but I HATE May with all the anger and words for the deepest, most ugliest hatred in the world. I hate May more than the evil drug that stole Brandon's life or the jerk who gave or sold it to him.
The entire month robbed me of who I was, stole from my daughter, not only her only sibling, but an entire life that she knew, along with many friends, because NO ONE in her inner circle has ever experienced such a trauma, and they are too young and carefree to be bogged down with such misery. It made my poor girl think she now has to fill the role of two kids and do it perfectly, all the while mourning the loss of her brother. What little joy (and there wasn't a ton) that Brandon's dad had left was completely obliterated. That damn month took a person I nurtured in my belly for over nine months, the only Brandon Hadi Kashef in this world, my boy wonder.
I open Facebook and absolutely dread seeing the reminders that I have memories to look back on. I start dreading those at the end of April because I know what is coming. I know the pain that I'll see and devastation, the grief that has no words, and I know I'll feel it like it was yesterday, but even in my avoidance, I can't help it....I look. And cry. There are no new pictures of Brandon, just recycled ones, no new memories. Llife goes on, but ours is parked in 2013. And, so I choose to focus on hating this month.
I can't be mad at God or Brandon or Baze or myself because the anger would spiral out of control and I'd be too hideous to look at...because I can hate all I want if the object of my hatred isn't a person...because I have to have one thing one time of year that I can blame for cheating me out of the life I was supposed to have, the boy that was supposed to long outlive me and for making me a person who understands grief on a visceral level and making me live with it every single day until I die. I hate being so vulnerable that I can be completely crushed under something. May did that. It wounded me like nothing else on this earth and I can retaliate no other way except to ball up every tear, every nightmare, every devastating moment, along with every single emotion in my body, and hurl it right at May's face and tell it to eff off.
And, then I'll get over and move on because I never stay mad at anyone for long...not even May. The sun will shine and piss me off for doing it, but I'll beg it to stay and I'll wish it were Brandon that I see walking on Bothell-Everett Highway in that beautiful sunshine...I'll leave the hatred behind and go back to wishing for all that will never be.
