Chief Rain Cloud

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I am in love. I am in love with being alive and I have been for as long as I can remember. Even during times when I was so filled with pain that I was not sure I could bring myself to draw the next breath, there was some longing within that would speak to my comfortless mind and my broken spirit and whisper breathlessly to wait, for this, too, shall pass. I have not loved a shrinking violet. I have loved a steadfast sojourner clicking off its cadence with the consistency of a metronome. No mountain scaled, no valley traversed, in anything but the constant clicking of time. I am but a passenger to the journey of my life. I have the luxury of waiting and resting my mind as life presses relentlessly forward. There are times when I have no choice but to wait and let life move forward without my rapt attention. It does not need my consent. It carries me on through times when I cannot lift my eyes to see what is passing. It is my loss. But it is for the best. In moments of despair, I am aware, in some deep crevice of my heart, in my soul, that life is moving forward and it is safe to believe that there is still a love in me for the miracle of my life. If need be, I can simply close my eyes and wait. I am carried forward in the midst of the worst of life experiences and I am aware that there is still something of value in going with it. If only the marking of time. There is the sweet ache of the expectations love brings. I am in love. Oh, yes, deeply so.

My brother is dead. There’s no use beating around the bush about it. There’s nothing lyrical or magical in being dead. I have faith that God does as he wishes with us when we have marked our time on this planet. I leave the mysteries of what follows life to the moment my life ceases. I hold out hope for something amazing. I don’t demand it. I have something amazing enough to occupy my time for now and I do not want to think beyond the gift of life if I can do otherwise. I hope it is well with my brother. But what I celebrate of him is of the time he was alive.

My brother, Sonny, was a couple of years older than me but we were close to one another in size and people often were not sure which of us was the older of the two. We matured at different rates, both physically and emotionally. We suffered and achieved in uneven measure as we moved through our neighborhoods and schools. Sometimes I lost sight of who was first born and took for myself some of the birthrights of my brother. I was vain enough, and our family had enough turmoil at times, to make such things possible. They seemed relatively minor at the time but I will never fully recover from the scars from the gashes of my conscience upon his death when I realized how I had felt about myself and my brother. I know it is safe to say that he was my best friend and that I loved him dearly. But I also know that it is safe to say that, as the second born, I had the advantage of watching him struggle. I saw him struggle with his relationship with our father. I saw him struggle with peers and school. I watched and I learned and, in many cases, I avoided the suffering that Sonny endured. And, I am ashamed to acknowledge, I began to believe that my smoother path was indicative of some inherent virtue. I began to think I had something that Sonny didn’t have. I don’t think I ever made an overt statement and I know Sonny never let on that my attitude was so repugnant. But it was real. When he died, the realization of how I had felt about him crushed me. It took a long time to understand that, although not perfect by a country mile, Sonny was the most normal person in my family. He lived right up until he died. March 3, 1981.

He was on the USS Belleau Wood, steaming towards the Philippines, south of Guam, tethered in the back of a helicopter, moving around, working and making a difference in his world when the ship rolled and the wind blew and the blades ripped into the catwalk and the ocean took him without a trace. My brother left me in the dust with his work ethic. He was a full grown man when he was on the clock. On his own time, he was a child of wonder and slipped easily into his timeless imagination. He was securely tethered when he died, both to the casket like hold of a marine helicopter and to the points of his life that grounded him in this world. But make no mistake, all but one tether was long and, in the end, all allowed him to soar. I’m sure, in the flash of a few moments, there was recognition, denial, terror, acknowledgment, panic, pain, and release. I can only take comfort in the fact that it was over before I knew about it. I have never suffered in that moment with him because I know he would not want me there. He was my big brother. He looked out for me when he could. His remains lie buried in the dark depths of the Pacific Ocean. Yet I take comfort that, before the wreckage could come to rest, my brother was soaring, un-tethered.

I can see him beyond the rainclouds that he used to point to when he declared the need to bag his papers when the rest of us boys would bet on sunshine in order to avoid the extra time, effort, and expense of bagging. He wasn’t a pessimist. Sonny wanted to make sure his customers got a dry paper. We teased him and called him “Chief Rain Cloud”. Ironic, since it was the rest of us who were doing the dancing and hoping. Sonny just bagged ‘em and delivered ‘em, come what may. His customers loved him. It took me decades to match his work ethic, his desire and willingness to deliver beyond what was required. I struggle to match his desire and willingness to live, loosely tethered and soaring. I aspire still and always to be like my brother, Chief Rain Cloud, come what may.