Remembering My Brother With Compassion, Gratitude, and Love

My memories of Orchard Lake go back as far as I can remember

 

 

 For John

Orchard Lake

On this 45th anniversary of my twin brother's death, I am remembering that there were happy times, too. It wasn't all trauma and loss...

All but one of the photographs that I'm moved to share above were taken at Orchard Lake where my paternal grandparents had a home. My father grew up on this beautiful lake near Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, as did his parents and my great-grandparents and my great-great grandparents. There is history here that stretches back though time. It is also rumored that Chief Pontiac was buried on Apple Island. And on a hot day in July of 1974, I was married to my first husband on that island. So many memories.

And what I remember about my brother was that he was happiest here. It was such a thrill for John when he was got his first sailboat. There was a freedom in letting the wind take hold and move him out farther and farther from shore. I treasure these memories at Orchard Lake, however impermanent, of my brother on his sailboat, happy and free. 

* * * * *

 Suicide

Coming to terms with the suicide of a loved one is among the most difficult and challenging experiences that I believe we can have. And today I know so many who have lost a family member or other loved one to suicide. These kinds of deaths of trauma, separation, and despair are tragically so common. So common.

This year the days of the week are the same as they were 45 years ago. And I remember learning later how it was on Friday, January 27th, 1978 that my brother walked out of the halfway house he'd been staying in, leaving a suicide note behind. I also remember the phone call that I got on Sunday, January 29th from my paternal grandfather letting me know that my brother was missing once again. (My mother wouldn't let me know, but she would call my grandfather, who then called me.) I knew that each time John went "missing" that he was trying to get up the courage to end his life. This time, unlike all the others before, I was determined to not get extremely stressed, telling myself that he'd reappear again sometime soon, as my brother always had in the past. 

But this time it was different.

I arrived home from a therapy group around 8:30 on the night of Monday, January 30th. Jim, my first husband, was on the phone. He was emphatically motioning me to stay back and stay quiet. Then I realized that Jim was talking to my mother, who was calling from her home in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Even before he hung up, I knew that my brother was dead. And Jim, knowing how heartless and cruel she could be, wanted to be the one to tell me, not my mother.

For some time it was too torturous to remember and even begin to process that my twin had died alone in that motel room after spending three days downing vodka and Valium. The motel personnel who found John after he didn't check out on that Monday morning also found a second suicide note informing them who needed to be contacted. And now John had died. And I survived by going into a kind of death of my own, spending years disassociating ever more deeply from my own heart.

For my brother, and countless others, death comes after a long and tragic experience of being starved for love. John wrote this poem, which I am moved to share once again:

If Only

I love to be loved.

I need 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 angry

about not being loved,

maybe I could find

the love that I need.

— John Strong

3/25/51 - 1/30/78

It was many years into my own healing journey before I began to truly understand the trauma that John and I had grown up with and its roots in generational and cultural trauma. 

Pictures — this one of John and my mother — always tell a story.

* * * * *

 Finding the Help That We Need

John was unable to find the help he needed. It wasn't that he didn't try. But then, in the 70s, what my brother received was Valium and shock treatments and commitment to a state hospital outside of Detroit whose ward was something right out of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" — all of which only served to add to the trauma John had experienced over his young lifetime rather then help heal it.

Before that, and while still a teenager, John had also been in therapy with psychotherapist Jean Hewitt. Jean loved John. And later I came to know and love Jeannie myself and thought of her as my "surrogate" mother. 

Sadly, and so common, I would also come to later realize that Jean Hewitt was herself, like my brother had been, an alcoholic who had her own unhealed trauma. Jeannie was simply unable to support my brother in coming any farther in his journey of healing and awakening than she'd first come herself. 

Today I see how limited that was, and no matter how much she cared about my brother and myself. And I hold my brother and Jean Hewitt with such deep compassion and love.

What I so clearly recognize today is how many in the helping professions had and have unaddressed trauma of their own. They simply have not done their own deeper personal work. They are not trauma-informed. And, sadly, it cannot be overstated how this continues to be true today. It is more common than not for doctors and psychiatrists, teachers and social workers, therapists and others in the helping professions to be lacking in significant ways in truly understanding and working effectively with children, adults, elders, and whole communities who carry trauma. 

Because we all have trauma. It is what we do with the harm — the ruptures and betrayals, the abuse and neglect, the addictions and anxiety, and all of the many losses and faces of violence we've experienced — it is how we attend to the pain and trauma that we carry and who we seek for support that matters and can make all the difference.

This has been a hard, hard lesson to learn — the critical importance of whether or not those we turn to for deep support are trauma-informed. This can make the difference between the perpetuation of harm or its deep healing and transformation. And for some, like my brother, this is the difference between life and death.

On a visit from Oregon with Jeannie at her Grosse Pointe home, 1977

* * * * *

 Awakening

Early in my journey of awakening, I was told by a therapist that the inner work that we are engaged in doesn't just heal ourselves, but also heals our ancestors, our children, and generations yet to come. This I believe to be true. Because we are all interconnected in and through time, how it is that we live our lives impacts the greater whole. And truly matters.

Over the course of many years now, it has become increasingly clear to me that we are all sending out ripples, individually and collectively, which in some way add to the healing and health and well-being of ourselves and others, or increases the harm and suffering of ourselves and those around us.

At the same time, I am also humbled with the awareness of how difficult it is to extricate ourselves from systems of harm that we have absorbed and internalized. Often what is accepted as "normal" in our society and beyond is in reality unhealthy, toxic, and harmful to our individual and collective physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. So many of us are lost to the heart of who we are.

As I speak to the prevalence of trauma in our culture and world, I am also aware that there is healing, there is transformation and awakening, and that — even in the midst of it all — there are countless examples and models, teachings and inspirations, stories and paths and resources which embody awareness, compassion, truth, wisdom, and love. It is absolutely possible to awaken. In an ongoing way, we can seek and discover resources which can assist us in waking up from the misperceptions and unhealthy belief systems that we have unknowingly absorbed and which do not serve our highest good or that of anyone else.

Especially the illusion of separateness.

My brother died from this delusion of a flawed, unlovable, unworthy, separate self. John was starving for love in an environment where he was not able to be seen and supported for who he was, where he remained estranged from the divine light within himself, where he was not able to find — in John O'Donohue's words — a wonderful love in himself for his self.

When John ended his life at the age of 26, he did not know his authentic self. He lived in isolation and disconnection. Truth and authenticity remained out of reach. There is no fault or blame in this. It is what it is. John left before he was able to find the support he needed to heal his broken heart and truly and deeply know beauty, joy, connection, intimacy, and love. My brother was not able to do this work in his lifetime.

But I can. And as I am coming to know more and more of the heart of who I am, and recognize the heart of who you are, I am conscious of doing this heart-work for both my beloved brother and myself. And our ancestors. And for my children and grandchildren and generations to come. And for my beloved husband and other extended family and dear friends. And for the houseless people standing on street corners who I extend dollars and granola bars and smiles and blessings to. And for countless other beings near and far.

We are not separate. The ripples we create matter. And whether we — individually and collectively —embrace, heal, and transform our greatest losses or run from them into addictions, distractions, projections, and suffering of all kinds matters. We all matter.

And what we experience in our lives can push us to open ever more deeply our hearts, to ultimately expand our compassionate caring to all beings, and to use the witnessing of a tortured and traumatized life as the exact inspiration to live and love deeply.

And this is what has evolved for me and how my twin's tormented and tragic life and death has changed me. At first, and for many years, I ran from the excruciating pain of it all. And then the Grace that I needed touched and found its way inside of my heart. And, over time, everything changed. Everything.

Just know that as anyone encounters and experiences loving-kindness from me today, that my beloved brother John is also part of my capacity to be love, to care, and to extend compassion to an ever widening circle of life. 

Do I weep today? Yes. Do I miss my twin today? Yes, I always will. And does my brother also live on within me? Yes. And, in the midst of my sorrow, do I also experience gratitude? Yes. After all, and as Francis Weller wisely reflects, grief and love are sisters. (https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2022/12/francis-weller-grief-and-love-are.html)

And this deep gratitude lives on within me for all that I have learned from my brother's life and death. Love is the great medicine. Love is who we are. John is always with me. His heart and mine are joined. We will always be twins, bringing forth the love and kindness and caring that we all need and are worthy of.

* * * * *

Recommended reading:

 

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness,

and Healing in a Toxic Culture

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Normal-Illness-Healing-Culture/dp/0593083881 

 

 

* * * * *

 A Prayer

May we be at peace.

May we be supported, safe, and loved.

May our hearts remain open.

May we know the beauty of our own true nature. 

May we be healed and grounded in a path of heart.

May we be liberated from the illusion of separateness

and the roots of our suffering.

May we experience our sacred interconnection 

and oneness with all of life.

May we know the heart of who we are.

May we awaken together. 

💗🙏💗

 

With love and blessings,

Molly

 

Mary Oliver: The Journey

On this 45th anniversary of my twin's suicide, I am drawn to once again share this poem by Mary Oliver... one I deeply resonate with. While I remember my brother with such deep love, I also reflect on that summer day in June of 1975 when my first husband and I left everything we knew from our childhood and ancestral homes in Michigan and headed west, destination unknown. 

At the time, I did not truly realize how I was moving away from my family of origin in order to save myself. And, significantly, I also reflect on the profound changes and grace which began to unfold in my life several years later as I rooted into a path of healing and awakening and never let go. 

Sadly, many do not choose or are unable to choose and discover that doorway through which they will be blessed with a journey of deep and transformative healing and health and wholeness. Too many will remain estranged from the beauty of their true nature.

It is so important to not bring judgment to those who are not able to survive or thrive in cultures which are too often steeped in separateness, violence and cruelty, ignorance and unaddressed trauma.

May we remember to hold us all, wherever we are on our human journeys, with ever deepening understanding, compassion, caring, and kindness. 🙏💗 Molly

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

  — Mary Oliver

 

John O'Donohue: For the Family and Friends of a Suicide

Photo by Molly

For the Family and Friends of a Suicide 

 

As you huddle around the torn silence,

Each by this lonely deed exiled

To a solitary confinement of soul,

May some small glow from what has been lost

Return like the kindness of candlelight.

As your eyes strain to sift

This sudden wall of dark

And no one can say why

In such a forsaken, secret way,

This death was sent for …

May one of the lovely hours

Of memory return

Like a field of ease

Among these gravelled days.

May the Angel of Wisdom

Enter this ruin of absence

And guide your minds

To receive this bitter chalice

So that you do not damage yourselves

By attending only at the hungry altar

Of regret and anger and guilt.

May you be given some inkling

That there could be something else at work

And that what to you now seems

Dark, destructive and forlorn,

Might be a destiny that looks different

From inside the eternal script.

May vision be granted to you

To see this with the eyes of providence.

May your loss become a sanctuary

Where new presence will dwell

To refine and enrich

The rest of your life

With courage and compassion.

And may your lost loved one

Enter into the beauty of eternal tranquillity,

In that place where there is no more sorrow

Or separation or mourning or tears.

 

— John O'Donohue

From To Bless the Space Between Us:

A Book of Blessings

 

'Spectacular Failure of Climate Leadership': Biden Outpaces Trump on Oil and Gas Permits

This is an incredibly disturbing and deeply important article. It illuminates the truth about the infestation of influence of large donors and powerful corporations to buy politicians, and at a catastrophic cost to us all.

For a long time now I’ve recognized that it isn’t just the Republican Party who has sold its soul to their corporate donors and the toxic ideology of neoliberalism and late stage predatory patriarchal capitalism. It is also most in positions of power within the Democratic Party who are acting again and again on behalf of their corporate donors rather than the highest interests of We the People, other nations and other beings, and our Earth Mother.

Getting dark money out of our political system, the media, and other institutions of power is essential if we are to lessen the violence and suffering plaguing our country and the world and have the potential of handing to our children and grandchildren a livable planet. — Molly

 

U.S. President Joe Biden listens as Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland speaks at the White House on October 8, 2021 in Washington, D.C.

 (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

"Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires phasing out fossil fuel extraction, but instead we're still racing in the opposite direction," said one environmental justice advocate. 

By Kenny Stancil

Although President Joe Biden vowed on the campaign trail to phase out federal leasing for fossil fuel extraction, his administration approved more permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in its first two years than the Trump administration did in 2017 and 2018.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity's analysis of federal data released Wednesday, the Biden White House greenlit 6,430 permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands in 2021 and 2022—a 4.2% increase over former President Donald Trump's administration, which rubber-stamped 6,172 drilling permits in its first two years.

“Two years of runaway drilling approvals are a spectacular failure of climate leadership by President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Avoiding catastrophic climate change requires phasing out fossil fuel extraction, but instead we're still racing in the opposite direction."

Of the drilling authorized so far by the Biden administration, nearly 4,000 permits have been approved for public lands in New Mexico, followed by 1,223 in Wyoming and several hundred each in Utah, Colorado, California, Montana, and North Dakota.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, these "Biden-approved drilling permits will result in more than 800 million tons of estimated equivalent greenhouse gas pollution, or the annual climate pollution from about 217 coal-fired power plants."

Just last week, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres told the elites gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos that "fossil fuel producers and their enablers are still racing to expand production, knowing full well that their business model is inconsistent with human survival."

Reams of scientific evidence show that pollution from the world's existing fossil fuel developments is enough to push temperature rise well beyond 1.5°C above the preindustrial baseline. Averting calamitous levels of global heating necessitates ending investment in new oil and gas projects and phasing out extraction to keep 40% of the fossil fuel reserves at currently operational sites underground.

As a presidential candidate, Biden pledged to ban new oil and gas lease sales on public lands and waters and to require federal permitting decisions to weigh the social costs of additional planet-heating pollution. Although Biden issued an executive order suspending new fossil fuel leasing during his first week in office, his administration's actions since then have run roughshod over earlier promises, worsening the deadly climate crisis that the White House claims to be serious about mitigating.

The U.S. Department of Interior (DOI) argued on August 24, 2021 that it was required to resume lease auctions because of a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. Judge Terry A. Doughty, a Trump appointee who ruled in favor of a group of Big Oil-funded Republican attorneys general that sued Biden over his moratorium. In a memorandum of opposition filed on the same day, however, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) asserted that while Doughty's decision prevented the Biden administration from implementing its pause, it did not compel the DOI to hold new lease sales, "let alone on the urgent timeline specified in plaintiffs' contempt motion."

Just days after Biden called global warming "an existential threat to human existence" and declared Washington's ostensible commitment to decarbonization at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the DOI ignored the DOJ's legal advice and proceeded with Lease Sale 257. The nation's largest-ever offshore auction, which saw more than 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico offered to the highest-bidding oil and gas giants, was blocked in January 2022 by a federal judge who wrote that the Biden administration violated environmental laws by not adequately accounting for the likely consequences of resulting emissions.

Despite Biden's pledge to cut U.S. greenhouse gas pollution in half by the end of this decade, the DOI's Bureau of Land Management held lease sales in several Western states in 2022, opening up tens of thousands of acres of public land to fossil fuel production. The DOI has so far announced plans for three new onshore oil and gas lease sales in 2023. The first will offer more than 261,200 acres of public land in Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Wyoming to the highest-bidding drillers. The second and third will put a total of 95,411 acres of public land in Nevada and Utah on the auction block.

In addition, the Biden administration published a draft proposal last summer that, if implemented, would permit up to 11 new oil and gas lease sales for drilling off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico over a five-year period.

The president's 2021 freeze on new lease auctions was meant to give the DOI time to analyze the "potential climate and other impacts associated with oil and gas activities on public lands or in offshore waters." Nevertheless, the agency's long-awaited review of the federal leasing program effectively ignored the climate crisis, instead proposing adjustments to royalties, bids, and bonding in what environmental justice campaigners described as a "shocking capitulation to the needs of corporate polluters."

The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated that roughly 25% of the country's total carbon dioxide emissions and 7% of its overall methane emissions can be attributed to fossil fuel extraction on public lands and waters. According to peer-reviewed research, a nationwide prohibition on federal oil and gas leasing would slash carbon dioxide emissions by 280 million tons per year.

The Biden administration "has not enacted any policies to significantly limit drilling permits or manage a decline of production to avoid 1.5°C degrees of warming," the Center for Biological Diversity lamented. The White House even supported the demands of right-wing Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.)—Congress' leading recipient of fossil fuel industry cash and a long-time coal profiteer—to "add provisions to the Inflation Reduction Act that will lock in fossil fuel leasing for the next decade."

On numerous occasions, including earlier this month, progressive lawmakers and advocacy groups have implored the Biden administration to use its executive authority to phase out oil and gas production on public lands and in offshore waters. A petition submitted last year came equipped with a regulatory framework to wind down oil and gas production by 98% by 2035. According to the coalition that drafted it, the White House can achieve this goal by using long-dormant provisions of the Mineral Leasing Act, Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, and the National Emergencies Act.

"The president and interior secretary have the power to avoid a climate catastrophe, but they need to change course rapidly," McKinnon said Wednesday. "Strong executive action can meet the climate emergency with the urgency it demands, starting with phasing out fossil fuel production on public lands and waters."

Please go here for the original article: https://www.commondreams.org/biden-trump-drilling-public-lands