The Easter Brother

I consider the following to be quite telling about my own personality: I never believed in Santa Claus. I never, even as a little kid, imagined or believed that a man would go house to house in a red suit and bring toys and stockings to boys and girls.

I did, however, believe, until I was ten or maybe even older, in the Easter Bunny. In my own defense I have to explain that we lived near the woods and I saw all kinds of rabbits, little baby bunnies and distance-covering jack rabbits, all the time. But I also had two older brothers who, as only big brothers can, facilitated, my belief. Sig and Larry would talk just slightly out of my earshot about The Bunny. “Don’t let her see him”, and “Did you see the basket he left next door?” They also, to make it more convincing, put bite marks on the handles of our Easter baskets.

My brothers died when they were 42 and 48. Now I’m the oldest. At Easter I miss them. I miss having an Easter basket from Lar who –even as an adult—made me one that included the bunny’s teeth marks to remind me just how naïve I had been. And I miss our sibling tradition of finding the family “King Egg”. As Easter approached we would each decorate our own hard-boiled egg, fortifying them with dye and crayon and competed (Sig and Lar were both went on to become engineers) by ramming our colored eggs together to see whose broke first.

I also miss dressing up for Easter services, complete with new dress and corsage. The three of us continued to go to church on Easter even when we had walked away from organized religion. We kept this holiday because we all liked the uplifting Easter hymns like “Up From the Grave He Arose”.

I kept going to church on Easter even as, and after, Sig and Larry were dying because those Easter hymns gave me a weird hope. It was not a hope of miraculous recovery for either brother, or necessarily for a reunion in the “Great Beyond”, but hope for my own “arose” from the heartache of losing my brothers, my playmates, co-conspirators and occasional torturers.

One of my final conversations with Sig was about my car. I was 40 years old but still easily defeated by my car worries. Larry, who was then sick, was caring for Sig who was dying, and I called their house in tears to report the impending death of my car. Larry, who was on the phone with me, relayed the mechanic’s opinion to Sig who was lying in what would soon be his deathbed.

Lar said to me, “Sig wants to talk to you”. I was surprised because Sig’s speech had become painful and very difficult for him. I waited until Larry positioned the phone for Sig to talk. “Here’s what you tell them….”, he began, and he proceeded to dictate a set of car repair instructions to convince any mechanic that I knew a nut from a bolt, and that this girl had a brother who would not see his sister taken for a ride.

At Easter I have the best memories of a girl with brothers—of a basket-carrying rabbit who was “just here a second ago” and of making faces to spoil the, “Come on; Say cheese” Brownie snapshots that Dad took of our Easter outfits.

Apart from any theology, Easter lets me believe in the resurrection of my family, of my all too gullible girlhood self, and in a life that rises, falls, rises and dies over and over as we each cycle through layers of loss and gain.

Sunday Night Feeling

If you are reading this on a Sunday afternoon it may have already begun. You may have felt its first symptoms, sensed the first wave of gloom spreading across your day. What is the cause of this odd feeling? Simply Sunday.

I call this the “Sunday Night feeling”. It is a troubling combination of agitation and malaise, not quite a real depression, but a kind of dismay or dread. There is historic precedent for the melancholy of this day. In medieval times Sundays were holy days with no work but festivals, pageants, and public feasts made Sunday a joyous day. With the Reformation, Calvin and Luther knocked all the fun out of Sunday; there was still no work but holiness became a kind of labor. In the Protestant faith Sunday became a day for worship and study only. English settlers brought this Sunday custom to the colonies. In Virginia, in 1610, all you could do on Sunday was go to church and study the catechism. This was law; the penalty for a first offense was loss of a week’s food; for the second, whipping; and, for the third, death.

Of course we’ve lightened up over time but “Blue laws” – named for the blue paper on which Sunday edicts were written in New Hampshire, are not gone from our national consciousness.

Part of the Sunday night feeling is regret. Once again the weekend did not live up to our hopes and expectations. The weekend we’d hoped for, the one we imagine when we say, “TGIF” never really comes. What we crave on Sundays is more freedom, but what we experience is the collision of two great American values: freedom and work. We keep thinking that we can work our way to freedom, but the Sunday night feeling belies the truth. On Sunday, it feels like the more we work, the more we are trapped as Monday morning approaches.

The frenzy of each week often feels like a roller-coaster ride. On Sunday night we are pulling out of the station; the cable engages to pull us into another week, chug-a-chug-a-chug; Monday morning we crest the hill and here comes the week’s wild ride: commuting, committees, decisions, difficult people, strained budgets, office politics, and balancing home and work. There are wild swings and sharp corners; and no matter how many times you’ve been around this course that last whipping curve feels like a surprise each time. We fly through it and then it slows again…chug-a-chug-a-chug…you’re back to the station; it’s Friday and the attendant is saying, “Push the bar forward and exit to your left.” We are free.

Then suddenly it’s Sunday again and it feels way too soon to be back in that car. Once you get to the top of the first hill there is no stopping; it’s just a matter of style. You may close your eyes and grip the bar, or throw your arms up and scream, but whatever you do, you’re on this ride till Friday.

No wonder people are walking away, leaving jobs, and choosing voluntary simplicity; that stomach dropping feeling stops being fun by the 100th ride; the mortgage and credit card bills feel like the bar holding you in your seat forever. At about six PM on Sunday night, when the anxiety about the upcoming week starts to gnaw at you, you want off.

Even those of us who like our jobs get this feeling, but I think this is also why the want-ads are so fat on Sundays. On Sundays we are in the mood to fantasize, to do a bit of grass-is-greener imagining: Maybe a different job, a different field, more money? But Sunday gloom is an equal opportunity employer. It comes to those who make lots of money and those who don’t make enough.

This is why Sunday night TV is so popular. We watch the big made-for-TV movies, the tear-jerkers and melodramas. We want distraction from what will come with the ringing alarm we set so reluctantly tonight. It’s Monday we are dreading. This is not all in your head. Consider this: Almost half of all illnesses begin on Monday and Monday is the busiest day in hospital emergency rooms; and most distressing, of all seven days of the week, Monday has the highest rate of suicide.

Maybe instead of gearing up on Sunday nights we need to wind down. Maybe we could get up a little earlier and step outside to see the dawn or listen to music instead of the news. Maybe we can go more gently into this good week.

Step Four with Love

Last night I heard someone speak about the Fourth Step. She referenced the principles of The Oxford Group that fed the development of AA’s 12 Steps. As she described how they join she said that a fourth step should be a deep look at where we are today made with honesty, courage and absolute love.

The love struck me. I have made many step four inventories and tried to be as brutally honest as I could, but never have I been deeply loving as I considered who and how I am. What would it be like to do that? To look at myself very lovingly as I note what is hurting me and others, what is blocking my connection to God and what is keeping me in fear

Courage and Fear

Here is a quote that I love and try to remember:


“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

--Audre Lord

Surrender

This morning, once again, I read in my daily meditation book about surrender. And I think, yes, that’s it. Surrender. On another page in another book I read that one becomes a true servant of God by, yes, surrendering. And I think, yes, I do that. And then right there for that tiny hair’s breadth moment I think, I don’t really surrender do I? I say the words. I may even have the intention. But do I put it all—yes all—in God’s hands and then go live my life? Well, no. So I tried again this time naming the things, people, relationships, concerns, worries that I want help with or that scare me. And I say out loud, “I am turning these over to you; I do not know what is right. Help me.”

Now it is the end of this day and it has been a decent day. A better day. Will all the things I listed turn out fine? Will he love me and she like me and they not blame me and enough money come to support the small nonprofit where I work? I don’t know. But I like surrender better than not surrendering. That’s a start.

Death in the Family

A member of my home group has died. Diagnosed with lung cancer a year ago, Tony made it this far. He died sober and we talk about that with respect and sometimes awe or pride. Would I drink if I had cancer? Would I use drugs if I was in great pain? The drug part is tricky. In cases of terminal illness the doctor’s orders are not always best for the patient. If we follow the guidelines of “using drugs as directed” it might not be the most sober thing to do. After all, doctors worry about terminally ill people becoming addicted. Crazy, I know, but it’s true.

But Tony has died and I will go to the memorial today. This is what we do in a family and AA is my family.

Flying Away

Time for vacation. Time for sun. Out of the Woods goes to Florida for a week. I have pasted program friend’s phone numbers into my calendar and made sure they are in my cell phone. I have the third and seventh step prayers on a bookmark and the St Francis prayer is in my cosmetic bag so I HAVE to read it each day. I’ll get to at least one meeting and I’ll write in my journal. One day at a time I’ll be sober on vacation.

This is the good life.

See ya back here in a week.

Max