November 4, 2012
THE UNVEILING - ONE YEAR LATER
It's hard to believe it's been a year since Gary's death. Even more incomprehensible is how any of us could still be able to exist without him.
How can we measure a loss when we have gained so much? How can we say Gary is no longer with us when he is so completely in our hearts and thoughts?
I need to believe my brother's death is just a very painful technicality. Even though I can no longer see him or hear his voice, he is always within reach: a thought, a memory, a word, a sunset, a bright star in the cold night sky, yes, even on a nasty shit skid on the sweatpants of a Walmart shopper.
Gary is always within my grasp. If I think hard enough, he appears, he becomes a part of me in the deepest, truest part of my spirit and fills me with a love unlike all others.
There hasn't been a day or even an hour where I haven't thought of Gary, missed him, cried for him, ached for just one more day, prayed for mercy from the agony of his absence, experienced the deepest sorrow and the most glorious joy. For me, Gary is everywhere.
In the forword to author Nikos Kazantzakis's last book, his wife wrote that she was surprised the streets her husband had walked upon had not turned to gold. Had she looked beyond her sight, she would have seen they were indeed paved with gold simply because it had been his path.
Because Gary had touched each and every one of us, we, too, are walking on sacred ground. The path Gary blazed for us is not only golden, but is one of great importance, infinite merit and immeasurable riches. It is a path of reverence, honor and responsibilty.
We all have an obligation to never forget, to remember not how we felt when we lost Gary, but how it was when we still had him. For as long as the stories of Gary are told, passed from generation to generation, as long as we hold on to all those things that made him who he was, Gary will live forever. With that promise, we can never lose him again, and for that alone, I am forever grateful.
