For Better and For Worse
FOR BETTER AND FOR WORSE
It is the one year anniversary of my Brother Robert G Wonders sudden death via a massive heart attack.
I am forever changed. My world. Our world is also forever changed.
For Better and for Worse.
First “The Better”:
I learned that death allows us to see a person whole; to do that thing, that is so arduous while they walk among us … namely accept, even embrace ALL of them. Not just the parts we enjoy or that make our lives easier but all those pesky, sometimes prickly other things too…for example, my brother was notorious for facing away from people in conversation. Yes, you heard right. He would literally turn his back on the conversation even as he spoke! I believe, It was how he coped with too much social stimulation for his capacity. You might have guessed he lived alone. You might also have guessed that It was hard to not feel he was somehow turning his back on you, and it was easy to perceive his behavior as rude or even as rejection. It was not. He loved us mightily. The depth of his constant love has taken up residence in my belly and this helps me move onto a landscape that includes him only as memory not as an embodied presence.
Yet, even knowing the truth and constancy of his love, while he was still living sometimes, if I was feeling beleaguered by life, or just tired, I found myself wishing he was not like he was and more like I wanted him to be. But now, one year out, I take that all back. I would give all I own to have him at the table, looking the other direction! Even that edge in his voice at times, what I wouldn’t give to have it back too. Who knew I would miss those pesky, prickly parts? Actually, I might even miss them the most! Wild, hey?!
Poet David Whyte wrote “what we strive for in perfection does not turn us into the lit angel we desire.” It is his imperfections I miss the most. That is where his humanity was most evident.
So “the Better”? Now when someone is showing up, being themselves, but those behaviors bother me, I say to myself “I will miss this too, maybe the most, when s/he is no longer here.” And amazingly, because this is such a real and recent experience, I go from a small (or large) irritated feeling to a deep and abiding gratitude for this person in my life, just as they are.
It is magic this shift from resisting reality (wishing they were different) to a full throated embrace of them as they are. Brother Bob’s death, so recent and unexpected, is particularly potent and poignant for this psychological Ju Jitsu. It isn’t intellectual for me now, it is now visceral, because his absence is also visceral, which takes me to …
The Worse:
He. Is. Gone.
I will not see his hands working on some project in his work room. And with those hands also went my father’s, his father’s hands. They were almost identical. Bob reminded me/us so often of our late father. University Math Professor dad loved to work with wood, as did his son. And it doesn’t stop there. My brother had so many of dad’s expressions. The way their eyes registered delight in a story just told or the look just before they would share a joke. The way Bob would throw his head back to laugh. What I would not give to see that again and to hear that laugh?!
“The Worse” is the physicality of the loss of him. I and his other two sisters, even nieces, nephews and nephew-in-laws have many of his physical possessions. His red two story craftsman tool chest is now mine, as well as kitchenware and clothing. His things bring him alive in memory which of course is bittersweet and also meaningful. He was mine. He was ours for 65 years and we were all his. What a gift and …
“The Worse” is a lifetime of small things. He will never again open a car door for me, or ask quietly, “Do you need anything, Nancy?” I will never see him beam that fantastic smile when my children speak on a zoom call or tease my sister Karen or show up at my sister Mimi’s home to help out with ever so many things, really “all the things.” His quiet way of serving, easy to miss when he was alive, but now impossible to not miss.
In the play, Our Town, which touches on these matters a woman who has recently died, wrestles one day back on earth from the gods. Oh how wonderful that would be to put our little band of four Wonders children back together for just one day. To smile sweetly at Bob’s turned back and to be able to share the too often not expressed, but nonetheless deep and abiding love and regard, we all have for each other. Cliche as it is, but nonetheless true, Love is all there truly is. All that matters.
RIP Robert Gerard Wonders
Youngest child of Robert and Mary Wonders
You were and are so very well loved.