Remembering John

 Reflections On This Anniversary

My brother died 37 years ago today. It was Monday, January 30th, 1978 and we were less then two months away from turning 27. The Friday before he had checked into the motel room outside of Detroit, paying for three nights. John spent those last days drinking vodka, consuming Valium, and off and on the phone with the suicide hotline. He also wrote poetry, which grew increasingly incoherent. But not this one:

If Only

I need to be loved.

I love to be loved.

And I am angry 

When I am not loved.

And when I am angry, 

I am not loved.

If only I weren't so angry

About not being loved

Maybe I could find the

Love that I need.

~ John Strong

They found John shortly after he had died on that Monday morning. There were two suicide notes. It has always felt as though my twin starved to death, starved for the experience of love.

On the other side of hell is something so utterly unimaginable before the experience of going through such profound loss. For five years I avoided my grief, doing the best I could to distance myself from my heart. Disassociation, addiction, distraction, and more gave the illusion of working. For a while. Then, on February 8th, 1983 my close friend, Ann Baker, said to me, "Molly, Jim's an alcoholic." And that was the start of the world as I had known it falling out from under me and gradually, piece by piece, disintegrating and dying. So something new could be born. Me.

I blog a lot about love and beauty, compassion and passion, caring and kindness, embracing what is in our hearts and waking up, wholeness and healing, joy and laughter, tenderness and truth, humility and vulnerability, courage and connection, gratitude and grace. I could have died when my twin died. I could have just given up and been among the walking dead. Or I could find a path and enough support to claim the gifts that come through leaning into, embracing, and learning to compassionately hold my pain and suffering. I believe this is what life asks of each of us, no more and no less. If we can just be brave enough to root into the journey that leads to the unimagined gems hidden in our great losses. Love, laughter, beauty and all of the above ultimately has come to me through the doorway of my tears. 

First, I had to bring the walls down. Some can do this, and some cannot. It is part of the great Mystery that so many of us do find our way out of the fog of our illusions and awaken to the remembrance of what has always been there. Everyone, however, no matter if stuck in delusion or on a path of awakening, has the potential to be a great teacher, either pointing the way to go or the way not to go.

While my son, Matt, and I were out to dinner tonight with my mother and the boys' grandmother, I asked my mom, "Do you think of John much?" "No, not really," was our mother's response. All the while, through the day I have been aware of holding John deeply in my heart. I am remembering John, in this moment and forevermore. And I am profoundly grateful that I am able to remember, that I am able to know grief and gratitude and everything that fills my heart today. I have learned to allow my heart to break open, again and again and again. What a gift... to stop the endless running and, instead, continuously open to the experience of being here, now, embracing life in all its joys and sorrows.

For both of us, I have learned to find the love that I need, the love that weaves itself through me and you and all of life. My twin's tortured life and death filled me with the passion, courage, and commitment to embark on this great journey of discovery. Such are the cycles of life and death and rebirth. Thank you, John.

May we love more authentically.

May we be healed.

May our hearts remain open.

With compassion, gratitude, love & blessings,

Molly