#diary 2023

कल वो मिली थी, तो शब बातों में ढली थी....

my heart is so broken for my whole family, for the generations upon generations of darkness and horror, of trauma and turmoil. we have been through so much, the world is so terribly unfair and unkind. i don’t know any more hard working, close knit, compassionate individuals than my family… we don’t deserve this pain.

my own grief, although all encompassing, is surmountable; it’s the compiled grief of the rest of my family that drowns me so.

it’s been five days. five days since he walked down that hallway and put the revolver to his head right in front of her. five days since all of our lives changed forever, maimed… i can’t wrap my head around it. why now? the world was, through all of our recent struggles, finally starting to look up. to look brighter. easier times were well in sight, for the first time in so long. we will never have answers, and it breaks me. the anguish we all feel must be a mirror of what he had been carrying around for so long. i can only imagine.

it’s so hard to think i will never hear his chuckle, his “love ya, honey”, or the sound of him taking his boots off outside the door before coming in. he was the heart of our family.

he was the most hard working, kind, vibrant, authentic, intelligent, humble, amazing man. a husband, a father, a brother, a son, an uncle, a friend to so many. it was impossible for anyone not to love him; he embodied Love. he was so stoic, so strong. so much more so than he should’ve had to be.

my mind keeps going back to the last time we talked on the phone, when i was sitting in my car just having left my tattoo appointment. he was worried about my dad, about his brother. about our family. i told him i was about to move into an off grid cabin by myself, that i didn’t know how i was going to make it work but i was determined and out of other options. he reassured me of my strength and capability, he never let anyone feel a victim to themselves or their circumstance. he believed so much in everyone’s strength and capability, and how anything was achievable if we all support one another. he told me he wanted to come out and help me in any way he could, he told me he’d get an old generator he had started up for me, and help me get firewood, dig a well for water. i couldn’t help but giggle because it was so like him; having just gotten out of the hospital, with a depleted body and multiple broken ribs, no money or free time to be spoken of, and over 7 hours drive away~ yet still offering everything as if it were nothing. that’s just who he was.

she told me days before he died he showed her the plans he wrote up to come help me at the cabin. she exclaimed through tears how much he loved me, and all of us, and wanted to be there to help make sure i was okay.

i reminisce back to the last time i saw him, in June. after the bluegrass show, how we all met up at a 24 hour diner, rowdy and rolling in 7 deep at 2am. how the waiter looked at us all like the circus we are and have always been… he sat at the northwest corner of the table, and recounted the incident earlier in the month when he died the first time. he was dead for over 45 minutes, with not even an electrical charge left in the heart to defibrillate. chest compressions for 25 minutes, ribs all broken. having aspirated vomit, nearly choking. 45 minutes, he was dead. when they finally got him to the hospital the doctors told them brashly that they did not think he would be coming back, there was nothing they had to work with, and it had been so long. it simply doesn’t happen. they had a pastor come and read his last rites. and yet, against all odds, he returned to his body. the doctors exclaimed they had never seen anything like it, and had no explanation to offer. through hauntingly sunken yet animated as ever eyes, he told me of the experience of leaving his body. he remembered every minute, every sensation. he said it was such a warm and dark place, and he felt as if he could stay forever. in that place, he still heard my aunt’s voice back on earth calling his name. he said as soon as he left his body, he drifted so far and fast because he couldn’t bear to feel her pain in losing him. he couldn’t bear her grief. but through the vast darkness, divided by realms, he still heard her and thought: “well, I’d better go check on that.”

and he awoke.

we didn’t leave the diner until around 4am, i remember walking out into the shadowy streets of eugene as a family, lit up only by traffic lights and the glow of the diner. i hugged him, and the whole family, and watched him step up into the drivers seat of that big Ford truck that drove our whole family near and far my whole childhood.

i had no idea it would be the last time. you almost never do, i suppose. i’ll cherish that night forever.

it’s hard to think that he fought so hard to live, only to die at his own hand. he and my dad had made promises and pacts over the years to never ever do what he did… its just so strange. it’s like something flipped suddenly, like a possession of some kind. it’s just so unlike him, and the timing feels so bizarre.

my aunt speaks to me of the primal, unfathomable grief that is running like a raging river through every facet of her being. there are no words…. their love was, is, otherworldly. i have always beloved in soulmates, because of them. because of bearing witness to their love. i can’t even imagine the utter despair of having such a love, having spent 27 years together and 3 children born and raised, only to lose it in an instant. they are two facets of the same spirit, and it feels impossible to imagine one without the other. the same with him and my dad, they were closer than brothers. the bond of my family, is something else. so strong it doesn’t feel of this world. i just want to take away the hurt, from all of us.

he was so special. i feel the term “Heart of Gold” was coined about him specifically. he gave his all to everyone and everything, never with any expectation. he just loved to give; he loved to love. if you were broken down on the highway and 100 cars pass, he would be the one to stop. if you were disheveled on the street and 100 people refuse to look at you let alone help, he would be the one to break silence and approach you. if you needed a helping hand and had exhausted every option trying make ends meet, he would be the one to drop everything and help even if he didn’t know how he’d make it happen, he would figure it out and do it with a smile. he was just so full of care and heart. he has been one of the greatest teachers in my life, reminding me through example of how i want to show up in the world. the kind of person i want to be to others, the kind of work ethic i strive to have, how to live in service of others, things greater than myself, how to move with authenticity and never care for how clearly the world sees me in all of my messy fullness.

i just hope that he is at ease. i hope he feels no pain. i hope he is in that warm and dark space that felt so comfortable the first time. i hope he is far from our grief, but still feels our love.

December 12, 2023 – Tuesday. I woke up at around 6 o’clock in the morning today and ate my favorite breakfast, lettuce salad with Italian dressing and a boiled egg. I can’t do my morning workouts in the meantime because our dorm keeper isn’t waking up early in the morning. They usually open our rooftop at around 6:30 in the morning and I need that early morning workout so I won’t be late for my…

in the forest, dark and deep…

life in boxes