Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Richard Laurence Baron - my brother.
Before the turn of this new year - on December 29th, in fact, while talking on the telephone - my dear brilliant brother Richard dropped dead of his final heart attack.
His wife, dear Barbara, called to tell me the facts of this mere hours later, and I've not stopped crying since. But one day, I probably will stop crying, won't I? How can such a tall redwood tree of a man be gone?
Peter and I will fly out to Houston on this coming Friday, for his Life Celebration Memorial Party thing on Saturday, where 300 some people are expected. My brother was well-loved by friends, family and colleagues, so it should be a swell and happy time, considering the sad reason for the gathering.
We've all been requested to wear Hawaiian shirts, as colorful as possible. I went and bought mine at the Aloha Warehouse yesterday, here in San Francisco. The young man behind the counter, seeing me weeping over my brother's death - and after I explained to him that we were all requested to wear Hawaiian shirts to his memorial party - gifted me with a beautiful string of candle wood nut beads, which - as he explained to me - are worn traditionally to Hawaiian funerals. The oil inside them is burned in honor of the dead, and if it burns well, the passed person is considered a demi-god. Richard would like that. I know his oil would burn and burn and burn. His was a mighty flame in life. His planetary pull massive, his orbital energies highly attractive. People loved him.
I did too. I do. If only I'd told him so, more often.
My first thought - after thinking "oh no!" on hearing the news- was "I'm glad Momma is gone because this would have done her in." I'm so glad she's spared this pain.
And I don't know why it's taken me this long to write this fact down in this blog....i certainly posted it on Facebook and on other sites...and have told everyone I know about this sad sad thing. But I've not blogged about it yet, until today. So maybe I just needed some distance. Maybe I need to let the memories flow..here or elsewhere...but let them flow. God knows there are lots of them....
After all, he was there before I was born, and has been the backdrop to my entire life as only an older sibling can be...i was merely a pesky spoiled bratty presence in his life....though i do think we came to some sweetly affectionate accommodation later in life, until we both knew our caring for each other was genuine and deep.
I am stunned at how I am unable to stop crying over Richard being gone forever. Sharp, ragged edges of sobbing crying, coming ,seemingly , out of nowhere and lasting short but deep spurts of time....just when I think I'm safe, another one begins and I cry so hard that my nose runs until I must blow it into rawness and it bleeds.
I think I am also angry at him for going off and leaving me. He's my older brother. He's supposed to take care of me in this wilderness. Drop the breadcrumbs. Blaze the trails to the safe places. Come up with a plan for escape from the Witch's ovens. Well, maybe that's what he did do by dying so young - he was only 66...three years older than me.
He's blazing a trail?
Not good enough....i needed more time with him. Here.
More on RIchard soon. I hope, dearly hope, he's having a good cold beer with Momma and Daddy in Heaven and that there's is as large a celebration up there on his arrival as there will be in Houston this coming Saturday on his departure......i want him to be happy. Ad to rest. And to know I love him.
Always have. Always will.
Always.
His wife, dear Barbara, called to tell me the facts of this mere hours later, and I've not stopped crying since. But one day, I probably will stop crying, won't I? How can such a tall redwood tree of a man be gone?
Peter and I will fly out to Houston on this coming Friday, for his Life Celebration Memorial Party thing on Saturday, where 300 some people are expected. My brother was well-loved by friends, family and colleagues, so it should be a swell and happy time, considering the sad reason for the gathering.
We've all been requested to wear Hawaiian shirts, as colorful as possible. I went and bought mine at the Aloha Warehouse yesterday, here in San Francisco. The young man behind the counter, seeing me weeping over my brother's death - and after I explained to him that we were all requested to wear Hawaiian shirts to his memorial party - gifted me with a beautiful string of candle wood nut beads, which - as he explained to me - are worn traditionally to Hawaiian funerals. The oil inside them is burned in honor of the dead, and if it burns well, the passed person is considered a demi-god. Richard would like that. I know his oil would burn and burn and burn. His was a mighty flame in life. His planetary pull massive, his orbital energies highly attractive. People loved him.
I did too. I do. If only I'd told him so, more often.
My first thought - after thinking "oh no!" on hearing the news- was "I'm glad Momma is gone because this would have done her in." I'm so glad she's spared this pain.
And I don't know why it's taken me this long to write this fact down in this blog....i certainly posted it on Facebook and on other sites...and have told everyone I know about this sad sad thing. But I've not blogged about it yet, until today. So maybe I just needed some distance. Maybe I need to let the memories flow..here or elsewhere...but let them flow. God knows there are lots of them....
After all, he was there before I was born, and has been the backdrop to my entire life as only an older sibling can be...i was merely a pesky spoiled bratty presence in his life....though i do think we came to some sweetly affectionate accommodation later in life, until we both knew our caring for each other was genuine and deep.
I am stunned at how I am unable to stop crying over Richard being gone forever. Sharp, ragged edges of sobbing crying, coming ,seemingly , out of nowhere and lasting short but deep spurts of time....just when I think I'm safe, another one begins and I cry so hard that my nose runs until I must blow it into rawness and it bleeds.
I think I am also angry at him for going off and leaving me. He's my older brother. He's supposed to take care of me in this wilderness. Drop the breadcrumbs. Blaze the trails to the safe places. Come up with a plan for escape from the Witch's ovens. Well, maybe that's what he did do by dying so young - he was only 66...three years older than me.
He's blazing a trail?
Not good enough....i needed more time with him. Here.
More on RIchard soon. I hope, dearly hope, he's having a good cold beer with Momma and Daddy in Heaven and that there's is as large a celebration up there on his arrival as there will be in Houston this coming Saturday on his departure......i want him to be happy. Ad to rest. And to know I love him.
Always have. Always will.
Always.
Labels: family
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Family
In our Southern Jewish, liberal Democrat household, where Momma did the NY Times crossword puzzle in ink and the Daddy had a garage stuffed with automotive projects he intended to get to in his spare time but never did , we each had our own standing room only
melodrama playing at all times, because, for one thing, it was a creative household as well, and when any possible reason for conflict arose, as it did every hour or so, voices raised, tears flowed, hairbrushes got thrown, feelings got hurt, doors slammed , more tears mixed with abject apologies ,and Daddy would fix his soothing spaghetti that we all adored. He and Momma would perform what I call the
"ritual of the cucumbers", when they'd prepare the salad for the pasta dinner : lettuce (always iceberg, I never knew any other kind existed until i became an adult doing my own shopping), carrots, radishes (does anyone put radishes in salads anymore?) and those fragrant cucumbers , a vegetable that to this day reminds me of true love. I smell cucumbers and i remember my tall Momma and Daddy in the kitchen , kissing and hugging, laughing and nuzzling like happy bears, casting affectionate looks at me and my brother to let us know that all was right with our world and we'd take the relief of those detente moments into the evening hours, gathering around the television set to watch The Wonderful World of Disney or Gun Smoke, Twilight Zone or The Ed Sullivan Show, basking in the glow of the small screen, in the dark living room, with Schnappsi, our dachshund, cuddled on Daddy's lap. Momma always read by the glow of her own little lamp, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, and her books were always massive, with lots of page, lots of political commentary and lots of - yes - drama. We were a household steeped in it. I don't like to generalize about families, but ours? Well, it just felt different from any of the others I knew. We were like an artist gypsy band, lighting the candles on Friday nights, doing our family dance to the tune of a klezmer fiddler and A Spike Jones honking horn.
melodrama playing at all times, because, for one thing, it was a creative household as well, and when any possible reason for conflict arose, as it did every hour or so, voices raised, tears flowed, hairbrushes got thrown, feelings got hurt, doors slammed , more tears mixed with abject apologies ,and Daddy would fix his soothing spaghetti that we all adored. He and Momma would perform what I call the
"ritual of the cucumbers", when they'd prepare the salad for the pasta dinner : lettuce (always iceberg, I never knew any other kind existed until i became an adult doing my own shopping), carrots, radishes (does anyone put radishes in salads anymore?) and those fragrant cucumbers , a vegetable that to this day reminds me of true love. I smell cucumbers and i remember my tall Momma and Daddy in the kitchen , kissing and hugging, laughing and nuzzling like happy bears, casting affectionate looks at me and my brother to let us know that all was right with our world and we'd take the relief of those detente moments into the evening hours, gathering around the television set to watch The Wonderful World of Disney or Gun Smoke, Twilight Zone or The Ed Sullivan Show, basking in the glow of the small screen, in the dark living room, with Schnappsi, our dachshund, cuddled on Daddy's lap. Momma always read by the glow of her own little lamp, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, and her books were always massive, with lots of page, lots of political commentary and lots of - yes - drama. We were a household steeped in it. I don't like to generalize about families, but ours? Well, it just felt different from any of the others I knew. We were like an artist gypsy band, lighting the candles on Friday nights, doing our family dance to the tune of a klezmer fiddler and A Spike Jones honking horn.
Labels: family
