Two Years Ago. In Memory.

Nothing that comes out seems quite sufficient to express the pain.
To honor the memory. I like this picture because it's the most recent new picture of Jason. New pictures are like a breath of fresh air.
New stories are like a brief respite.
And there are so many layers of stories here.
Jason, the artist.
Jason, the fuck up.
Jason, the defender of freedom.
Jason, the confused young boy.
Jason, the killer.
Jason, the soldier.
Jason, the hero.

And the more stories, the more pictures, the more clear it becomes that he is not here with us.
The stories and pictures are like drugs --temporary relief to deal with the pain that my brother is gone.

And so two years with out you Jason and life moves on. As peaceful and gentle as it always has, no matter how much I fight it. The sun rises, the birds sing, the rains come and go. And I keep realizing, every day, in a new way, that you are not coming back.

I've been reading Pema Chodron's When Things Fall Apart over the past few months and realizing that this pain, this loss is not something to run from but something to embrace.

A little quote for those of you who may find comfort here.

When Things Fall Apart
"We think that if we just meditated enough or jogged enough or ate perfect food, everything would be perfect. But from the point of view of someone who is awake, that’s death. Seeking security or perfection, rejoicing in feeling confirmed and whole, self-contained and comfortable, is some kind of death. It doesn’t have fresh air. There’s no room for something to come in and interrupt all that. We are killing the moment by controlling our experience. Doing this is setting ourselves up for failure, because sooner or later, we’re going to have an experience we can’t control: our house is going to burn down, someone we love is going to die, we’re going to find out we have cancer, a brick is going to fall out of the sky and hit us on the head …

The essence of life is that it’s challenging. Sometimes it is sweet, and sometimes it is bitter. Sometimes your body tenses, and sometimes it relaxes or opens. Sometimes you have a headache, and sometimes you feel 100% healthy. From an awakened perspective, trying to tie up all the loose ends and finally get it together is death, because it involves rejecting a lot of your basic experience. There is something aggressive about that approach to life, trying to flatten out all the rough spots and imperfections into a nice smooth ride.

To be fully alive, fully human and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that’s life.”

- Pema Chodron, When Things Fall Apart, pp. 71-72