#remembrance

He slips on his flip-flops

and with an injured knee

hops down the porch steps,

gripping clippers in his hand.

Without a word between us,

I know what he’s about to do

and dig out a few Ball jars,

fill them with cold water

then go out myself, ready

to receive the blowsy pink

peonies he cuts, one by one,

trimming off their leaves

before passing them to me.

I lean in, and for the first time

this spring, breathe in the

subtle perfume that will soon

soften every room of the house.

A storm is brewing behind

the lid of gray clouds piled

above us, a pummeling rain

about to reduce each blossom

to a bare green nub. But we

are busy down here, gathering

evidence, building our case

for a beauty that saves

simply by existing.

I don’t know why I had resisted cutting any peonies this spring. I’ve been down with a cold for a week, and was about to head out of town for work as soon as I felt better. I think I saw the mess of those pink petals scattered on the window sills and floor, waiting to be cleaned up when I returned, and told myself not to bother. Luckily, one morning, Brad grabbed his clippers and stepped outside before the approaching storm. Knowing without words what he was doing, I dug out a few Ball jars and filled them with cold water, then followed him outside. He cut the huge exuberant blossoms, one by one, and trimmed off their leaves before handing each one off to me to place in the jars. Shaking out any stray ants, I buried my face in each one and let myself awaken to their sweet perfume. It was as if I’d forgotten what it was like to breathe, and then suddenly remembered. I thought about how my best friend had just messaged earlier that day, asking me to send some photos of the garden. “We only get so many springs,” she wrote. Now, each time I come into the kitchen to make coffee, I’m greeted by the sight of the peonies, having opened even wider than before. Now, when I carry bags of groceries up from the car, I remember to stop and inhale the scent of spring, the brevity of another season on Earth. I no longer worry about shriveled petals littering the floor, or seeing bouquets of bare, nubby stems sticking out of jars of murky water. Only so many springs, I say to myself, as I step outside in bare feet, across the warm mulch, to hold one more peony up to my face, breathing them in before they’re gone.

Today, June 12th, is when, ten years ago, a 29-year-old named Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people and wounded 58 in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub named Pulse in Orlando, Florida, with many victims being Latino. That should never be forgotten. I'd like to share something light today after all that tragedy, one fic I wrote, recently, bringing together Renee Montoya, a Mexican-American character, and Barbara Gordon, a Black woman, as they meet and grow closer, while talking about Renee's ex, the one and only Harley Quinn!

Some time has passed since Renée lost Harleen. She is still in daze about what happened to the woman she had grown so close to, the woman she had bonded with in a such a deep way, unlike anyone else. One morning, at a low-key coffee shop in Gotham, she is comforted by her best friend and confidante, Barbara. She begins to realize that their connection may go beyond a simple friendship. Barbara feels the same, but she is afraid that if she expresses how she truly feels, it could disrupt their "beautiful friendship" and destroy their deep bond as women. What comes next is up to them…

Originally posted over at https://blog.chrislegge.com/death-grieving-and-rememberance/

Death is hard.

A really controversial opinion, I know. It feels trite to even write that, because of course it's hard. Losing someone is one of the hardest things that anyone can go through.

Even when it's expected, it can still hit you like a runaway train. We had known that my brother was dying for several years. He had a combo of terminal diseases that made sure it was a matter of when, not if. We knew it was coming, there were a few close calls, and he went through a lot of ups and downs as he neared the end. Like other members of my family in similar situations, he was too stubborn to do anything on a timeline other than his. He was given 3-4 months, but that was about 3 years ago.

When it happened recently it still blindsided all of us. I was making plans to see him the next day. My parents were coming into town a month later for an extended visit. Things were just suddenly different one morning. Forever changed. Yet, the world had the gall to just keep moving like nothing had happened. Things were just sickeningly normal. It felt like there was no time to grieve, we all just needed to deal with it and move on.

I had a very complicated relationship with him for most of my life. He was more than a bit older than me and never let me forget it. I won't mince words, he could be a real asshole sometimes. He always knew which buttons to press that could bring me to anger faster than anyone else (not easy to do at all, let alone at the speed he could). More than one scar of mine, both mental and physical, are due to some stupid idea he had. Hell, I didn't even curse until college, just because he tried to get me to for the entirety of my teenage years. Now, I swear like a sailor.

He was also one of the nicest people you could meet if he would allow himself to get out of his own way. He could be genuinely funny sometimes. He introduced me to a lot of the classic books and movies that came to build the foundation of what defines me. Somehow, I inherited his mannerisms, not those of our parents. One day when I was 13 I walked into my room and there was a traffic cone sitting on my bed and I heard him yell from several rooms away, "Don't say I never gave you nothin'!"

Like I said, complicated.

I actually started writing this long before he was gone, but for different reasons...

If you don't know, I'm a tabletop game designer in my spare time. For the past couple of years I have been working on a game that is largely about death and how it is never too late to be the people we want to be. It's called Lethe and is probably my favorite thing I’ve done up to this point. It's also the hardest thing I have ever had to write. There were times that writing something innocuous would make my brain shut off and I'd have to get up from my desk to walk around a bit. In the end I got it all down how I wanted it and I'm damn proud of it.

The game is getting so close to release and as excited as I have been, I have also been dreading it. You see, it's helped me process a lot of very specific feelings in relation to my brother. Like a lot of designers, my tabletop games end up being about something more, for the most part. It’s my way of using the unique nature of games to convey something. It's not just a game about a stack of animals in a trench coat, it's really about imposter syndrome. Germanic folklore Kobolds trying to leave a cave that has been abandoned by the miners? No, no, that's about burnout. The game about crossing a mythical river and losing all your memories? Well, that's about death and how it's never too late to choose who you want to be. See where I'm going?

Of all the things he did in his life, the worst thing my brother ever did was never forgive himself. Whether he would admit it or not, he carried each mistake like a physical weight right until the end. By the time he was looking at the end of his life, he was so knotted up with regret he couldn't even recognize it for what it was. On his bad days he would do things just to provoke a reaction and would always reply with "It's just the way I am" or "I can't change who I am at this point". This is, to put it mildly, bullshit.

We all have the ability to choose who we want to be and work toward that. Any day, at any point, we can make that choice. It is work, and there will be setbacks, but only we can make the choice to take that journey ourselves. It is NEVER too late. This is also one of the biggest things that separated me and him: I can't let myself feel this level if stuck in who I am or, more accurately, was.

This is what actually got me started writing Lethe a few months after his initial diagnosis, not the mechanics or trappings that typically are the start of things like this. My anger and frustration at an inability to make things better for not only those around you but yourself as well.

So, yes, there is a character in the adventure portion of Lethe that is based on my brother. It's not his name and the circumstances are different, but anyone who knows him would be able to spot which one it is. I will not be telling anyone which character it is either. That's the point. If he couldn’t get past himself enough to move on from his regrets, maybe others can. Through writing and creating things I could grieve him, even in advance. I could create something that could let me have the space I needed to grieve, and hopefully give others a similar space when they play. Something between redemption through others and a memorial. A memorial that shows that the people we love are not just assholes at times, but capable of so much more—even if they couldn't see it. Something to keep them in this world just a little longer.

Terry Pratchett hit this feeling on the head once. When discussing the death of character's father, the main character of the book, Moist von Lipwig,¹ asks them:

"Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?"

I almost cried the first time I read that and the words have stayed with me ever since. I've worked the concept into my art before, but never to this degree or this personally. So, if you play Lethe at some point (and you should, it's quite good I think), make the choices you think you should make for your character to be better than they were, whoever they may be.

It's never too late.

Today would have been Peter's 85th birthday. This past year and a half has been a strange journey. A wander in the wilderness. A time to think about and contemplate the life that we shared together that ended with his death. And yet. I can't say that the cancer years were "bad." If you haven't lived it you don't know that in the midst of the drama and the rollercoaster ride between hope and hopeless, there is a lot of grace, a lot of widening and deepening of capacity for love and illumination. And laughter. I have missed and grieved and mourned for many of the loved ones that I have lost. But really, for Peter, it has been very different. I have wondered why, and I think the main thing is, I think he enjoyed everything in his life to the hilt. He got a kick out of everything. He really had no unrealized dreams or missed opportunities. He just didn't think like that. He wasn't ambitious in that way. He was fully alive inside his life and when it was over he just let it go. Toward the end of his life he looked at me one night and said, "I never thought it would be like this. It's really just another day." He was really "himself" in life and in death. He enjoyed playing the role of "Peter Scupham."