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| John was happiest and most at peace when sailing. Orchard Lake, 1966 |
It was 46 years ago today on January 30th, 1978 that my twin brother ended his life. John and I were just short of our 27th birthdays. Over these many years of my own deeply healing and transformative journey, how it is that I carry this loss and remember my brother has changed and evolved.
* * * * *
John was no doubt a highly sensitive child. While I disassociated in the face of the trauma that permeated our childhood home, my brother was a sponge, absorbing everything. And while I survived by being "good," John was driven to fight back against that which sought to devour him. And we, therefore, fit perfectly into our mother's narcissistic compulsion to project her unaddressed trauma onto each of us, with me being the "perfect" child and my twin being the "bad" one. Of course, this worked except for when it didn't and when I strayed from the perfectionistic demands put upon me to set aside my own needs and emotions in order to solely reflect and meet hers. But John would have nothing of it and he met her rage with his own.
Being born into this family with its unaddressed intergenerational and cultural traumas cost my brother and myself dearly. As it also had both of our parents and their parents before them and on back through time. Those who are unable to recognize and meet the basic needs of their children — for bonding and attachment, safety and security, compassion and nurturance, listening and mirroring, creativity and play, laughter and joy, tenderness and love — do not just fall from the sky. Today I understand deeply how it is that hurt people hurt people... including our own children.
* * * * *
The last time that I saw my brother was in May of 1977. It was my first visit back to the home of my childhood after moving with my first husband from Michigan to Oregon in the summer of '75. It wasn't until after I arrived that my mother told me that John wasn't staying with her then, but had checked himself into another psychiatric ward, this time at Cottage Hospital in Grosse Pointe. This followed years of ineffective and harmful therapy, attempting suicide or being at risk of suicide, and many unsuccessful attempts again and again to heal his young lifetime of devastating pain and trauma.
Tragically, the "help" John received then were shock treatments and Valium and no safe environment or wise and heart-centered human being who truly understood his depression, addictions, shame and rage, ocean-deep grief, and the many faces of John's trauma. The suffering of my brother continued unabated.
And so here once again was my twin on this psychiatric ward. There is one thing that I remember clearly from that last visit with my brother. And that is when John told me, "I know I need to get away from Mom. And I know I can't." I knew how toxic and dangerous our mother was. I knew the obsessive addiction with endlessly seeking her love. And I knew that it was killing John.
So I understood in those moments on the psychiatric ward that my brother was telling me goodbye. Despite all my desperate attempts to save him, I knew in my deepest self that I would never see my brother again. And I didn't. Just over eight months later John checked into a motel room with his vodka and valium and spent three days killing himself, writing increasingly incoherent poetry, calling the suicide hotline, and writing a suicide note so the motel staff would know who to contact in the wake of his death. My brother was found on that Monday morning shortly after he had died.
* * * * *
If Only
* * * * *
There is another side to all this tragedy and trauma. Yes, there were the happy times, the fun experiences we shared, the memories with my twin that I treasure. There was more than living in fear and shame and pain. And, that said, it is the trauma of unpredictability of when the next rage and terror would strike that left John and me huddled and suffering alone.
And that could be the legacy of my brother's life and death. But it is not. I could have gotten stuck in my own "if only's." Or I could continue what John began. And this is what I have done.
John had sought to heal his heart, to break through all the trauma and loss, to live a life where he loves and is loved. Tragically, what I know today about the therapists my brother saw and the treatments he received is that all of these resources only served to increase his trauma and addictions and the unbearable experience of loneliness and loss and shame that is at the core of being disconnected and starved for loved. And this was especially true for John as it related to our mother, who throughout our childhoods demonstrated that she was not capable of compassion or love.
Despite his efforts, my brother was not able to find the help he needed to root deeply into the generational shadow work that had gone neglected and denied and which had haunted and plagued our family for generations. John was unable to discover a path of heart, of tenderness, of grieving, of compassion and love that would support him in healing his broken heart and growing into the wholeness of being a fully embodied human being. And so it was that my brother remained fragmented, isolated and disconnected from loving relationships, and unable to recognize and cultivate the skills and wisdom of the alchemist.
* * * * *
Every morning a new arrival.
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
* * * * *
The legacy of my beloved brother that lives on in me is my fierce and passionate quest to pick up where John left off. I have stopped the endless running away from what has caused so much trauma and pain for so many generations. I've gotten clean and sober and sustained my sobriety. And I've moved towards the suffering and fear, the delusions and pain, and the many layers of trauma within myself and my ancestors. And, critically, I have found the wise and loving support which has empowered me to discover and root deeply into this path of heart.
Forty years ago when I was experiencing the early weeks and months and even years of opening and healing my heart, Rumi's "Guest House" would have made no sense to me. I was just overwhelmed with this journey of thawing out and coming back into my body and my heart. Feeling the enormity of grief, rage, shame, and fear that my brother and I had covered over with our many addictions was overwhelming. It is incredibly hard to be the first out of so many generations to stop, to find the wise and compassionate help and support needed, and to gradually embrace, integrate, and ultimately receive as a gift from beyond this sacred journey of awakening.
Without opening to both grief and gratitude, I would have stayed stuck in the if only's, the addictions and resentments, the bitterness and blame and shame, the mistrust and separation and isolation, and the trauma that had been passed on for so very long. And I never would have learned how to grow into the nurturing, loving mother within myself that little Molly had always so deeply hungered for.
Through this long and amazing journey of the heart and soul, I am living the life that my brother did not experience in his lifetime. And as I do, it is my belief that this healing, this deep and ever-growing compassion and connectedness and love that I am able to embody and experience today, ripples through, not just myself, but also my brother and our ancestors and the generations that have followed my twin and myself. This is an awakening that is boundless, that weaves its way through and beyond what I can comprehend and imagine. This is the sacred process where what is ultimately discovered is the love that will not die.
* * * * *
* * * * *
And that is the legacy, the legacy of my beloved brother. That out of all this trauma and pain have emerged the extraordinary gifts of the alchemist that I have birthed within myself and the life I am so blessed with living today. Through being a loving parent and grandparent, through sharing life with my beloved husband, through my work of over 30 years with abused and neglected children and families and others, through all the ways that I have received and am now given the opportunity to give back — all of this and more has emerged out of trauma and loss.
How else are we to forgive, to shed bitterness and judgment, to free ourselves from so much fear and pain and trauma if we don't cultivate the awareness that we must, we truly must, seek the gifts that are buried in even our greatest losses? The path is not over or under or around. It is through.
Do any of us deserve to experience the trauma that life inevitably visits upon all of us? No, we do not. And I will never believe that it's just our karma or fate or some ordained divine punishment that plunges is into years, lifetimes, and generations of hell and trauma. Never. I've seen too much heartbreaking abuse and trauma of tiny vulnerable children, of whom my brother and I were once its victims.
The good news, the exquisite and hopeful takeaway from all of this is that often our hearts are much stronger than we imagine. Generational and cultural shadow work is hard. It is really hard, as many of you already know. There is no denying that. And it is harder to stay asleep, to remain estranged from ourselves and living our lives fragmented rather than whole.
Breaking our hearts open strengthens our hearts and connects us with all of life. What an extraordinary gift it is to end the long estrangement. Our greatest strength truly does lie in the gentleness and tenderness of our hearts.
The deep trauma of losing my twin to suicide, my "wombmate" as John called us, has become the fertile ground upon which that which has caused so much pain and loss over so many lifetimes has come to die. And in its place has grown Love.
As I reflect on the life changing and wise and loving support that I have received over so many years, I bow with heartfelt gratitude to my many teachers and healers, authors and wisdom-keepers, friends and family, and God/Goddess/Spirit/Mystery. What an incredibly miraculous and sacred journey! My gratitude is limitless...
I also hold my brother so tightly now. And weep. And I say to John, we did it. We opened our hearts and souls to love. Thank you for being my angel. Thank you. I will always love you. 💗
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