Reconnection
May 18, 2008 by susangpyp
I wrote last year about my baseball game with my brothers. We didn’t grow up together because Mom farmed me, the only girl, out to foster care. Last year was the first time we got to do something we all love (baseball) together.
We went to the Subway Series game together. Brother Billy is a Mets fan and Ricky and I are Yankee fans. So we had so much fun last year, we decided to make it an annual thing and today was the day. I have 4 tickets and last year Billy brought his son (another stupid Mets fan ;)) but this year it was just the 3 of us.
I looked for my birth family when I was in my 30s because I was looking for my brother Edward. I’ve written about Edward on here and shared my Whitman story that sorta revolves around my longing for him in my life –> storyhere
All my life I wanted to find Edward, the one I remembered, the one closest to my age….always thinking he would save me from whatever harm was befalling me…and finally when the urge to know him and be with him got to be too much, I swallowed my anger at my mother and found her to find him….and he had died a few years earlier.
But I still had Ricky and Billy…but the grief over not finding Edward in time has always sat very hard with me. I’ve cried rivers about it…and have worked very hard to resolve the grief…but it’s grief that comes up over and over again.
About a year ago my sister-in-law told me she would get me a picture of Edward. It’s something I’ve never had and always wanted and just mentioned it in passing.
Today we were at the ball game and I said, “Hey, did Kathy ever get me a picture of Edward?” and Ricky said he didn’t know but he pulled out his wallet and took out a picture of Edward and said, “Here ya go.”
And I took it in my hands like it was gold.
Like it was the greatest thing anyone had ever given me.
Because it was.
And I sat there clutching the picture and then looked over and realized we had an empty seat. And here we were — the four of us. Together for the very first time.
And we stayed for the whole game and then took the subway to Manhattan and went out to dinner and we hung out…it was good and fun and odd that no one really wanted to go home. My brothers were so drunk, which is what they do with their emotions…and I kept yawning but I wasn’t tired. I don’t drink. I guess I just yawn.
My brothers like to sing loudly and joke and hug me every 3 seconds and have a good time and I always get quiet because I think of how different my life would have been if I had this all my life.
It’s just so emotional for me being with them and knowing what I’ve missed, what we’ve missed. All the years we weren’t together…but having so much fun with them now.
Stifling the grief while having such a good time is very exhausting. We laughed a lot….all day long…and then when we said goodbye we did a big bear hug, the three of us, in the middle of the Port Authority Bus Terminal. And as they walked away, it seems goodbyes are always hard for us, they kept waving and saying, “Love you!”
And I walked away and pulled the picture of Edward out and just sat with it for a while and cried. Nothing really makes me cry anymore. It’s been a very long time since I’ve cried and usually it’s about my brothers and when I cry about my brother Edward it is a deep and primal kind of crying…the kind I do about nothing else. I don’t even know what it has to do with…just the thought of him and our reunion, all my life, and then it never happened…and I was too late…or something.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get over losing my brother or not having my other brothers during so many years I was lonely and aching and wanted that connection to someone. To know there were 3 people out there who would have been at my side, to love and protect me and share things with me, during so many years when there was no one, is really hard for me sometimes. And the days with my brother are some of those days. I don’t get drunk but I become emotionally hung over.
I know I wouldn’t be the person I am today if it were different. I wouldn’t be writing this blog, writing my book, living the life I live now. I know that most of this probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t started life wth the huge hole in my soul that I had. And if bad crap is going to happen to you, it’s good if you can turn it around and then share it with other people who might have bad crap happening to them. It’s the least you can do, I think. So that part is good…but some days, like today, I have to wish I’d never had been in the position to lose so much and then gain so much.
I know it’s part of who I am and what I’ve gone through to get where I’ve gotten and the reconnection is part of my healing..but sometimes the grieving and the healing and the reconnection just plows me under…and I am emotionally spent.
And I’ve got about 700 email messages to go through and I will try to get to them all tomorrow.
Promise.
Thanks for listening.
Good night all!!!!
Susan,
I’m so sorry. And for them, too, because of the amazing sister they lived without for so long. I don’t know why these things happen, but you are making the best of the second chance you’ve all been given, and that’s worth a lot. My brother just moved 2200 miles away this past week, and I’m missing him so much already. Almost lost him to a near-death car accident, but now he is well and going back home. I’m so glad you found your picture (or it found you), and that tonight Edward was there where he belongs, with all of you who love him. That he was home.
Ay, Susan, I feel sad and happy for you. Thanks for opening up
about this, about sometimes wishing that you didn’t have to
live through what you did live through so you could become
the wonderful person you are now. About how bitter sweet it is for you to feel your brothers’ love today and and know what you missed all those years. It takes such courage to do that, and then more courage to share it with us. So this is Kathy hugging Susan this morning: K ((Susan)) K
Nurse that “hangover” today and keep taking good care of you FIRST.
Susan,
Thanks for sharing yout depts, your sorrow. As Kathy sais it takes courage to do that. I wish for you to honor your self today, allow yourself to be in a space you need to be, look after you and don’t worry about email messages. Hugs to you.
Susan,
Thanks for sharing your depths, your sorrow. As Kathy sais it takes courage to do that. I wish for you to honour your self today, allow your self to be in a space you need to be, look after you and don’t worry about email messages. Hugs to you.
I’m so sorry and so thankful. If you had not gone through that you probably would have gotten a mediocre job and said “good enough” a long time ago. And then where would many of us be?
I think, personally, your words served as a lifeline when I knew my approach to life wasn’t working, but had no idea what else to try.
Now I am having coffee alone at 6.30 am, having camped under the stars with just my motorcycle (and a few mosquitoes) for company on the Oregon coast and I’ve nearly cried twice with the beauty of it.
The mist is just starting to break up and I hope it does soon because there are roads waiting for me!
You helped make this moment possible, Susan.
Rebecca
Say stop to time.
This road is mine,
Seducing me with impish grin.
Faster, faster, yes! I cry.
And softly subside with a sigh.
What a miracle of love I’m in.
Susan and everyone,
This post made me cry, cos I felt it was written for me. It’s exactly where I’m at in the last few days… I went through a pretty crappy childhood from the age of 5 onwards, inc. mental and physical abuse by my father, a difficult relationship with my mother, then my father died when I was 13, and I was then the scapegoat within my family through adolescence and for some of my 20s.
The road of psychotherapy and counselling (I still go for counselling now) has been a long one, I’ve spent years in therapy, working on me, unravelling the mess that was in my head, trying to unlearn unhealthy ways of thinking and doing and being in the world, and learning new healthy ways… and it’s so tough, it’s so tough, cos learning new healthy ways takes time, and breaking old patterns takes time and practice, and so much EFFORT… And sometimes, like these days, I feel like it’s so unfair… I was saying to my counsellor the other day that although I’m much happier and sorted and at peace within myself than ever before (even in the midst of grief over my break-up from my ex) and though I know that what I went through in childhhod etc has made me who I am today, and I’m a good and compassionnate person, I still can’t help but wish a lot of the time, that I hadn’t been through all that crap, and that I’d had a happy time growing up… because it’s still so exhausting trying to monitor myself and behave in healthier ways… things happen (like this break-up) and those old unhealthy reactions/ways of being get triggered, and it takes so much mental energy to rationalise stuff and do the healthy thing… Sometimes, like now, I feel so tired of it… I wish I’d had an easier time of it growing up, so I wasn’t having to do all this work now, unpicking the past, and creating a better future for myself…
And though I’m doing a lot better now than ever before, I have realised in the last few days that I’m grieving the loss of those years where I was locked in depression and despair… my adolescence and most of my twenties were blighted by the dark shadow of the past, as I went through psychotherapy etc trying to sort out the mess… And I have done so to a large extent, which is great, but it’s still exhausting - maintaining it… and no one can give me those years back that I lost…
Thank you for listening.
Susan … this post touched me deeply. I’m happy for you that you finally have a picture of your brother.
Big hug Susan. That’s a mighty big heart you have there…glad you keep spreading it around and taking care of it.