All Day Music

Mediterranean Chicken and Rice

This was the first full on meal I actually spent time making in my kitchen since the passing of my brother.  I keep trying to fill my mind with positive thoughts but I just keep coming back to the fact that he is gone.  My complex beautiful brother. I'm sick inside. I feel tired and disinterested.  But I do notice the softness that exists in the day, maybe even more so.  He was just here with us, battling his cancer, hopeful that his treatments would be effective.  He was telling us of all the things he would do when he got well.  And we had hope.  I believed he would get better, as did my siblings and his kids and grand kids. Sure, it was becoming less likely but anything was possible just two short weeks ago.  I wanted to begin doing more, like sending him uplifting music, albums that reminded me of him. I thought to send him handwritten letters.  But he was becoming too sick to bother with any selfish notions.  That's the hardest part in caring for someone who is fighting for their life. You must understand so much of it has nothing to do with you, come to grips with your insignificance to the situation. You do not hold any power.  And your love only seems to linger in the air instead of penetrating it's target.

 The biggest and only gift one can really give anyone is their sincere love.

Now, mourning feels like lactating love.  Where your heart automatically secretes an outpouring of affection that has nowhere to go.  You can't put it back in or use it on another, it just hangs around getting stale.

Grief has legs too.  It is the distress and heartache that fills your whole body until you finally comply.

 Eventually this will get remedied and replaced by fond, tender memories and reflection of his grace. And by faith.

I'll get back to cooking great meals in my tiny kitchen, laughing, taking pictures, brushing my cat. And for sure an all day music marathon of songs that remind me of him. But I'm not ready to leave my brother even if the sadness I'm holding onto has nothing to do with his real soul.  It's all I ever really owned of him to begin with.