Tim and I, 1995
It’s hard to write this, hard to be here.
Most of you who read my blog might already know this from our other online connections but my brother died a week and a bit ago.
I found out on the afternoon of Sunday the 16th, while I was launching my online course.
I have said so much about it, to so many people, including what I shared in the eulogy that I wrote and which my sister and I read together at his funeral, and which you can watch online.
So, words fail me a bit right now, except, to start, a couple of words: thank you.
Thank you for the outpouring of comments and private notes and emails and texts and concern.
Thank you for sharing in our memories of Tim, and for the pin-ball machine of hugs at his memorial.
Thank you for sharing your own stories and memories of Tim.
Thank you for the love and concern and care you’ve shown my family, especially my sister, my mother, and I, so soon after the loss of my step-dad two years ago.
And thank you, finally, for reaching your hearts out to Tim, empathizing with the struggle he was in, giving your compassion to what he saw at the end as his only possible path towards peace.
As I said in my eulogy, my brother had a difficult road, and was sometimes difficult, but he was my big brother, and I adored him.
When I was a kid, he carried me around on his shoulders as we played ‘secret mission’.
He took me out in the woods and turned off his flashlight to teach me how to see in the dark.
He gave me books about giants and fantastical worlds and Scottish legends.
He fired my imagination, he encouraged my writing, he believed in me. He was brilliant, creative, and driven, and in many ways, we were alike. He led the way.
I will always miss him; his memory will live with me, in a messy, creative, tender lobe of my heart.
I admire you so much. I always have and always will. You entitled this piece Words Fail but I would like to add from a heavenly source that LOVE never fails and because your words are so filled with love, nor do they fail. Your willingness to share during your most vulnerable moments is a treasured gift that we all need to THANK you for so thank you.
Ah, Jen, thanks…. Xo.
I’m so sorry for your loss, Lauren. This is a beautiful tribute. I so admire you for sharing your grief with such an open heart.
Thanks, Libby. I hope things are good with you and your new little life.
I love you I love you I love you.
I’m right here loving you.
I love your courage and honesty in all you have said and written and shared at a time when words fall so far from communicating what is happening to the heart and soul in grief.
Back at you. Xoxo, my dear friend.
Words are tough in times like these. I’m so sorry he’s gone Lauren. What a difficult time for everyone he left behind. Beautiful post. ??
A difficult time for us; difficult years for him. Thanks for sending your sympathies. Xo.
I’m so sorry for the loss of your brother, Lauren. Please accept my condolences. I love how you write about him and I’m guess he does as well.
Thank you, Donaleen. All best.
i can’t even imagine how difficult this is Lauren. Just know that there are a lot of us – close, old and new online friends, like me – who are thinking of you and sending you love.
Thanks you so much, Erna. Hugs.