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