My Brother

"If you have made a mistake, there is always another chance for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you chose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down." Mary Pickford

Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - "If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same".
Joan McIntosh

This is a repost from one I did last year... and because it's January, the month of my brother's and Mom's and my grandmother's birthdays, I get to thinking a lot about the past..........

Now, some of you may think this is strange, but i believe it's a story that has to be told. My brother's birthday just passed and it brought to mind something that I believe is very funny and something he would think comical too. You see my brother passed away a year and a half ago and we really did not part on such great terms.
That being said, prior to the two of us becoming "adults" (and I use that term loosely) we were very close. As a matter of fact, we were clowns....always pulling pranks on everyone inside and outside the family and we did have a loving history together up to a point.
Well, a point came in my life where everything I held to be safe and secure and pretty much settled blew up. My Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, 9/11 happened (I lost some really close friends and co-workers), my best friend died, my brother started to use drugs and eventually became homeless, AND, (big and) I left my husband.
Needless to say, I did seek therapy(lol). Which brings me back to the point of this whole story.......
While in therapy (before my brother passed) I did talk about him and our relationship so my therapist got to know him thru me.
When he died, he was cremated, at his request.
Well.........one day as I was going into my therapist's office I hear a honking horn and a woman exited her car and started to walk towards me. At first I didn't recognize her but as she approached I saw it was the Funeral Director from the place where we had my brother laid out. She told me she had his ashes in the car and asked me if I wanted them now or should she wait until I stopped by her office.
I said sure, give them to me now.
As she went to the car to retrieve them, I thought, hmmmm I wonder what these are going to look like because i was on my way into the doctor's office and didn't want to walk back to my car with this "package".
She came back and handed me a plainly wrapped brown papered package. Sure was heavy too!!!!!! I took it and thought ....Wow this is very strange....and then said "Hi Bill".....and chuckled to myself.
So now I enter the doc's office........he's a really nice guy btw. I sit down and he notices i have what appears to be a very heavy package in my lap (you see I don't know what to do with it, I'm thinking "should i put this on his desk or on the floor"?
Since I've never had the occasion of "transporting" someone's ashes...this is all new to me.
Well.......I wound up placing it on his desk. The doctor looked quizically at the package....I start to talk assuring him it was not a bomb, and asked him: "Remember me mentioning my brother Bill?" and he said "Of course"!
I said: "Well I'd like you to meet him!"

Peace

Gratitude List
1) Being able to laugh at life's tradgedies
2) Therapists
3) Mistakes
4) Forgiveness
5) Penquins