~BRUCE~

Here I go again to that vulnerable place I don't feel comfortable going . It's almost like letting you who read this into a place where only I go...by myself and usually alone. Obviously, I don't make a habit of inviting people here often because it makes me a little uncomfortable. Okay, a lot uncomfortable! But, there are things that need to be written down because in the writing comes a certain type of closure a healing. Most of the time its referred to as "therapy" yikes! So, here I am again writing for posterity what I can't say out loud...I still don't handle certain parts of my life very well without my brother Bruce. There are days when I simply find myself staring off into space. On May 12th 2007 he died in a small plane crash. It was a beautiful Saturday morning and it has taken me two years to look back on it and realize that I can't change it, I can't fix, it and I can't spend forever crying over something that I had certainly no control over. I know Bruce wouldn't want me to.

Bruce was our "glue". He was my dad's best friend, my brother Matt's "go to" man. He was my youngest brother Shane's champion and my all around good guy. He was my cousins adopted brother because they were a family of all girls having never been blessed with brothers. He took that position seriously and considered each one of them as much his sisters as I was. He knew what to say and how to say it. What to do and did it. He cared more than most and showed it. He was not always happy, but seldom sad. If he was angry you knew it, then it was done. I loved that about him. However, he was known to hold a grudge ever so slightly when deserved, He was a wonderful father and tried so very hard to be a great husband...I miss him. We ALL miss him. My mother passed away three years prior to Bruce and surely welcomed him home...

When my mother died people told me that time would make it better, that I just needed time.
I have to say that time does makes it a little easier but not better. Nothing can make it better. I feel sometimes like I am pretty good at writing down stuff. But, stuff is only stuff when it doesn't hurt on the inside so much. It becomes so much more than stuff when it hurts. It's about the void that is left because he isn't here. I can't call him, I can't hear him. I have forgotten what his voice sounded like, his laugh. I am so sad that I won't get to see what he looks like as he grows old with the rest of us. His number is still in my phone and his email address on my computer...I can't seem to bring myself to the point of pushing "delete". I don't know if I ever will. I know that life isn't fair and that bad things happen to good people. I understand all of that. But, what do you do with the "empty"? Where can you put the "nothing"? What happens to the "hole" that is left when someone you love is taken away so suddenly and so tragically?

These last couple of years as I have pondered those questions and the hurt has subsided a bit with time. I have also come to the realization that "empty, nothing, and holes" all have something in common. They are "fill-able"! They can be filled with faith, with love and with service. There are people out there that are hurting so much more than I am! I used to feel like I had to almost turn myself inside out to do anything for anyone else because I was so self absorbed in sorrow but, once I started looking at the opportunities that were right in front of me it was easy. What a difference it made in me! I believe for the past two years "Bruce" has been teaching me that. So as often as I can I throw a little "Bruce" into the empty parts of my everyday, hoping that the difference it makes in me will spill over in the lives of those around me, especially my family who have suffered most from the sorrow I have let consume me at times. Bruce was so much fun to be with in life and even now that he is not here his influence speaks volumes to those of us who are willing to listen in a "different" way to what it is he is trying to tell us which to me is simply: "live" and "enjoy" every moment you are given because this life can be gone in an instant...Even before you can turn around and catch one last glance at the people you love...