6 Years Ago



Six years ago today, I took Goodpasture Elementary School on a walking tour.  It was a Thursday.  I remember that because on April 27, 2006, an event that forever changed my life occured.  My oldest brother committed suicide. It was the day before his 62nd birthday.   It was one of those April days in Middle Tennessee that make you ache from the beauty with warm sunlight, cool breezes, and the world is that special shade of green which appears only in the spring. 

He went to work that day.  He had an appointment, and then telling his receptionist that he was going out, he left his office for the last time.  I do not know, but I imagine he had on suspenders.  Everytime I see a man with suspenders on, for a brief second, I think it is him.  Charlie then went to a place that he loved, Shelby Park, laid a short farewell note on the seat of his car, walked down to the boat ramp, called the police, calmly telling them who he was and where he was, then, while on the phone, he shot himself.  The brother I knew would have made sure there was no question as to the cause of his death in an effort to ease some of the pain for those he left behind. 

A rift had developed between different parts of our family.  It was caused by poor communication, no communication, misunderstandings, misquotes, too much of the wrong kind of talking and too little of the right kind.  It quickly eroded into a chasm after my brother's death.  No one is at fault.  Everyone is at fault.  When I say everyone, I mean those who were adults while the fissure was being systematically expanded.  For my part in it, I grieve, and will forever have regret.  I have tried to make apologies, but those apologies are seen by some as too little too late.  They are genuine and heartfelt apologies, and if they are not perceived as such, all my pleas for understanding will bear no fruit.  They are being filtered through hurt and anger and loss and disappointment, just as we all view life through our own filters.  I do not see this abyss being spanned by my generation, but I have great hope that our children will have more sense, lay the hurt aside, and come together once again as family.  I know some of them are slowly working at it. 

I find that today, as I did six years ago, I grieve the loss of the brother I knew rather than the man I had come to not know.  Oh, I do grieve for his wife the loss of her husband, his children the loss of their dad, his granddaughters the loss of their Bugsy. By the time he died, he had very little presence in my daily existence.   But, when I was a child, he loomed large in my life, and I watched and studied him.  He was 8 years older than I, so I knew he had knowledge and wisdom far beyond my own.  I adored him.

I have sweet memories of Charlie, Mike and me sick with the Asiatic flu.  We all stayed in the same room while Mom gave us Hawaiian Punch and took our temperatures.  I also remember sitting in the car, for what seemed like hours, while Charlie courted Carol at her house.  He was suppposed to be babysitting me.  Ma Wachtel would never have left me out there, so I am fairly certain he did not tell her that I was languishing out in her driveway.  I never told my parents that.  I remember him taking me to the swimming pool with his friends.  Can you imagine the joy of an eight-year-old girl surrounded by sixteen-year-old girls vying for my attention so they could get to my brother?  It was great! 

In junior high school I had a brown linen skirt and a brown and white linen floral jacket from Norman's.  I wanted that outfit so badly, and it was not in the family budget.  Charlie bought it for me.  He was always generous in that way.  I sat on a chair of wet paint in the skirt, and thought I would die, I was so upset.  Somehow, as only mothers can do, Mom got it clean, and I wore that outfit until it fell apart. Of all the clothes I have owned in my life, that skirt and jacket stand out among the few I remember.

Charlie helped me write the speech I gave when running for student council in junior high.  It was a beautiful speech.  I did not do it justice, however, when I failed to remember the words "Gettysburg Address."  Lincoln's address was really the thesis of my speech.  Thank goodness, I don't think Charlie was there for my shame.   

For one of his many jobs, he drove an ice cream truck.  It wasn't one of the ice cream trucks you see now, it was more like a large freezer on wheels pulled by a scooter.  He would bring me chocolate malts in the afternoons when his route was finished.  They were in little cardboard cups with a tiny wooden paddle-like spoon.  That was very new at the time.  I think I got the malts because they were not  popular among the children on his route.  I did not care.  I loved them because Charlie saved them for me.

Charlie is the one who comforted me when Mike ran away from home.  I was devastated.  Maybe, somewhere in my child's mind, I knew life was changing.  I remember sitting on our front porch, legs swinging back and forth, and Charlie sitting beside me explaining that both Daddy and Mike were being hardheaded, and until one of them was willing to back down for the good, the stalemate would continue.  It took a while, but Mike returned.

I have so many little vignettes of life with Charlie in my head.  He really liked nice clothes.  I loved to sit and watch him polish his shoes.  He would chase me around the house threatening to tickle me, and as terrifying as that was, I was thrilled to have his attention.  I remember a fist fight he and Mike had in the driveway...they were babysitting me.  Charlie's skills as a babysitter left something to be desired.  He loved music of every kind played very loudly.  He loved to drive fast, in fact he ran my father off the road in the Brush Hill curve one day.  Daddy was not pleased.  He loved boat races and car races.  He wrote the word "Guntersville" in bright red paint on a wall in the crawl space under our house in honor of an annual boat race.  He had mono as a senior in high school, and was very sick.  Because our house was very small, his clothes were kept in the livingroom closet.  He left his shoes on his car and drove off the day of my wedding.  He had to back track and find them.  The wedding planner told him and my friend, Nancy, to "shut up" during the rehearsal.  They could not stop laughing.   He was a champion of the underdog...always, a champion of the underdog.  He was loved and popular and handsome and funny.  He could not keep a secret for 10 seconds.  As a child, I longed to achieve his approval. 

So, on this day, six years after his death, I mourn.  I am fairly certain that I did not mourn successfully six years ago.  Perhaps, I felt I did not deserve the privilege.  His death was not about me.   His wife and his children were more important.  For me, my mother's grief was the most important, and the hardest to witness.

I wish I could turn back time to that beautiful April day in Middle Tennessee as I happily walked back to my car after a successful tour, checking messages on my phone.  I wish those multiple missed calls from my brother, Sam, had been an invitation to an impromptu lunch rather than the words I heard when I returned his call; "Mellie, there's no good way to tell you this...Charlie is dead...he shot himself."  If I could turn back time, perhaps, then I could bridge that chasm, and not leave it to my children to do so.  I pray they will.  I am assuming that when I move on to the next phase of my eternal journey, I will see Charlie again, and all will be as it should be.

 

So, for today, I wish you the chance to make things right, the fortitude to find joy and happiness in life if that chance has passed, and I wish you

blessings