Today my brother Andy would have been 41. Last year I spent the month prior to his death watching him fall apart on Facebook. He was obviously struggling emotionally and I kept my distance, believing he’d get through it and land on his feet. I have lived with that guilt. Today, I don’t feel guilt anymore. Today I recognize that I was chosen to be close to this trauma because I remember Andy before meth took him. Before he came to an unthinkable end. Today I celebrate that I remember Andy before he was consumed and overtaken. If I had it to do over again, I would have engaged that last month…but then maybe I would have had to see how bad things had gotten. It is what it is…and I’m living with it and working it out.
This past month I was really forced to look at how much painting and writing have gotten me through the darkest year of my life. I’ve never thought much of my own art. It isn’t fine art. It’s preschool principles…applied to the wall. I’ve thought at times that my art is similar to passing a front yard with artificial flowers jammed in the ground…it’s maybe a little tacky but it’s nice if they want to do it at their house… I’ve thought of myself as more of a doodler than an artist. The writing thing I can’t take any credit for. I can take credit for my strength in written communication the way I can take credit for having dark brown hair. It just is. But the painting…I’ve never quite wanted to own it. This past year has changed that. I’m a painter. Specifically wall painting.
“Why the walls?” I don’t know. Maybe cause I don’t want to buy and stretch canvas or maybe because we have ugly wall paper and it felt like it couldn’t get any worse. Thankfully, Chris rarely protests when I’m slinging paint around. He’s been known to walk in the room and say “This is my favorite one yet…” and I don’t believe him but I let him say the nice thing. I think I’ve decided I don’t know why I choose to paint the walls…because it truly is the most nerve wracking thing to be in the middle of a painting EVERYONE can see and be feeling insecure because maybe they aren’t seeing the vision you have in your head and it’s going to take days to bring it to life and we’ll all have to sit with the weird stages in between and like most art I produce…its NEVER finished. Sometimes it’s just that I needed to wash out the brush one last time and touch up a color and I just never do it. And it isn’t a big deal. But the point I’m making, is painting on the wall forces me to become comfortable with discomfort. I have to be ok with people seeing an unfinished product…maybe forever. And it’s a very vulnerable position to be in. To potentially feel your painting may sit incomplete and no one will ever know what you had in mind. What a gift it is to see so many paintings to near completion! To be raising 7 beautiful kids! To be married to a good man! To know a life that is equally as radiant and beautiful as it is dark and terrifying. To breath it in everyday and actually know what a gift it is. Andy has given me that.
The painting began shortly after Andy’s passing.
The day the New York Times published the first article about Andy being the fourth person killed by Trooper Jay Splain, I stayed in our bedroom the entire day with Noah and Daisy and painted a mandala above our bed. I needed those kids and I needed that mandala that day.
After a few months I noticed a pattern…that on the most difficult and dark days I found myself with an insatiable need to paint. It helped my mind to think all the thoughts it needed to…but to remain in the physical body. It kept me grounded. I’ve thought of it like I was right around the edge of a very deep, very dark pit and painting was the distraction that was keeping me from getting too close to the edge and going down. I painted through it.
Over the last several months I’ve been waking up at 5AM and asking, “What is my purpose?” Andy’s death has done that for me. It has caused me to take much more seriously my time and space and presence here…because it can be unexpectedly over. Andy left a half folded pile of laundry that night. No warning. No signs pointing to how vital those moments, days, years had been in leading up to that night. No goodbye. No legacy to redeem. No coming up from his rock bottom. Just the rock bottom. Cold. Dark. Hard. Final.
My mental health and healing of past trauma has become a passion that I choose to pay attention to everyday. No one is going to do it for me. It is my singular responsibility to be OK…and if I’m not, I need to be able to evaluate what is going on and what kind of support I need. In the worst way imaginable, my brother Andy has shown me this.
I woke up one of those mornings a few weeks back and felt the need to fill the space on the walls in our front room. For whatever reason, I remembered a doodle I used to do when I was maybe 10 or 12 years old. A squiggly line that filled an entire piece of paper. Then I would color in the sections that the squiggly line had created. I haven’t thought about that squiggle in 25 years. My brother Andy really thought it was cool. He thought it was cooler than I did. He made me look at it and see it differently. I made him one. He slipped it in a clear plastic notebook sleeve and pinned it to his wall with a thumb tac…like some kind of exhibit. I remember how it felt. He was always forthcoming about his admiration for my creations. In high school I made a clay mask every year in art class. I always gave them to Andy. They hung above his couch.
Today, I celebrate Andy’s contribution in helping me to find a beautiful and life giving way to weather the storms this life has to throw at us. Not ironically, 6 months before Andy’s death, I became unexpectedly close to someone who was prior to that point merely an acquaintance. We were meeting weekly as she was completing classes to get her masters degree in art therapy. All throughout this past year she has helped to validate the immense role that art can play in our healing and wellness.
We’ve all heard the saying, “Life isn’t about what happens to you, but your response to what happens to you.” I am so pleased to say, that while I responded to Andy’s death quite poorly at first…because it was shocking and traumatic and horrific…after that subsided…I was able to stop responding to his death and was inspired to respond to his life. He was a vibrant and inspiring individual with deep character and a sharp wit and a massive heart. He was fun and friendly and generous. I know the pain he had to suppress to be that charismatic person. I now know that without serious therapeutic attention, that kind of trauma cannot stay under the surface. I think when you love someone who dies while in the throws of addiction, you can look back and distinctly recall 2 deaths. The first being that initial introduction to the substance that took them, and the next being their physical death. While there is no excuse for the use of lethal force against my unarmed brother that night, I want to look beyond a need for justice in an unjust world and spread a message of hope and healing. There is a reason people turn to substance. There is a reason people slowly kill themselves long before their final death. Until we can become a more trauma informed, compassionate society…we can only expect more of the same. I’m now part of an ever growing group of people who have loved someone who has met their end by way of lethal force while at the lowest point in their life. This isn’t going anywhere. This is life. I hope we can learn how to better handle and care for one another.
I considered sharing this on the anniversary of his death, November 7th…but I decided I don’t want to acknowledge that date with my writing and art. His birthday is 2 days and 2 years before my own. We celebrated our birthdays together many, many times…something I always enjoyed. So it feels right to share this in celebration of his time here. 40 years and some days.
On this, his 41st birthday…I dedicate “The Life Line” to my big brother, Andy. One single line from beginning to end. Every single human life is a different length. And we never get to know how long ours will be, but we have to believe we are creating a masterpiece. I’m so thankful that my life and his were meant to intertwine.
Happy Birthday, Andy.
