#btw I don't think that my wifeS do such things with Alan | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

bygracealonegirly · 8 months ago

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3 years goes by too fast. My beloved Big Brother, you'd be 27 now, probably a father of even more stair step little girls, with a few more bronco rides under your belt and miles under your boots. I think there would be more cows in the world now, you'd have made sure of that.

I'm doing alright. I own my very own fancy shmancy photography business now, and I get to see a lot of beautiful things, and any time I'm afraid to talk to people about the Good News I use you as my inspiration. I don't know if my life would be the same; losing you was profound for me in ways I struggle to explain to people. Sure we come from a big family, but that doesn't mean we love each other any less than small ones.

Zach Bryan came out with a song that feels relatable the same weekend as your death anniversary. Gosh you'd hate that. Too sappy, you'd tell me through the mustache. Quit cryin Elizabeth, life's too short to cry and carry on - turn off that racket and put on something with a good twang. (My last video of you, btw, is you dancing on that dang stripper pole to Alan Jackson on that party bus we all rented for after David and Lacey's wedding, and I've stuck by my word to never show Mama, promise promise!) But, since you're not here to steal my phone and hide my sad songs away, I will indulge in a little crying - with Zach as good company.

There is a You shaped hole in the world, but I take some comfort in knowing you made the ultimate selfless sacrifice and have helped so many people. The boy who got your heart is a man now, and that's thanks to you CJ. He reached out to Mama today to check on her, and told her he got into the nursing program.

I suppose you already know this but the Wright family their little boy suffered a brain injury from drowning. Knowing they're going through the same agony we went through, but even more because he's just a baby, well it's gut wrenching. Having to make impossible decisions with so much unknown is not something I wish on anyone, least of all a mother.

The girls are getting big and Lord do they have your personality. Full o' piss n' vinegar as Mama would say. "Spicy" as your wife says. They also have your big open heart though and definitely your zest for life. They are a handful just like you. Thank you for having them, I get to still love all of the best parts of you through them and gosh we love them so much.

That song you love has that line "life's a bull when the gate gets pulled you better be holding on tight". God knows you had a heck of a grip but our Father in Heaven had other plans that we don't fully understand quite yet, but I know one day we will.

See you on the big wide open range in the sky 💕 You are missed always and forever Big Brother

The anniversary of my brother's death is coming up, and 3 years later I'm shocked at how the grief can creep up and swallow me still. If I think about him more than in passing I still weep. I'm still overwhelmed by the absence of his belly laugh and mischievous grin. I still feel rage creep up when I think about how unfair it all is; his 3 young children were too small to have personal memories of him, and must subsist on what we show and tell them. His beloved wife only got 5 years with him total - some people get 60. Our view into God's plan is so narrow, I know, I really do, but still, why him?

CJ was something else. A real gen-u-ine cowboy. Tough hands, crinkly eyes, and an ever present grin. Quite the dancer. A heck of a card player. An even better choir singer. He was never short on jokes or belly laughs. The best darn bow hunting partner I'll ever have. And gosh he loved his wife; the sun rose and set on her from the moment they memorably met (she slapped his rear end on a dare during a rodeo and told him to quote "giddy up cowboy"; they were wed 18 months later). He was an incredibly doting father who insisted on doing the late night feedings because work kept him so busy in the daytime. And most of all he was a true Christian who shared God's Word with most anyone who would listen and loved his neighbors.

Every year I approach being older than he ever was. 24 years and 18 days, 6 hours and 32 minutes (I'm sure Mama knows the seconds.) It's unnatural to grow older than your big brother, and each of us younger siblings marches toward it; my sister surpassed him recently and fell into hysterics once she realized. The clock now looms over me like the shadow of death itself.

It was a farm accident. A freak thing. Everyone tried their best to save him; first his wife, then the neighbors, then local EMTs, a flight nurse and a paramedic, countless nurses and doctors and specialists from The Big City. They all wept with us as he took his final breaths, surrounded by more people than the hospital was technically supposed to let in. It took him an excruciatingly long time to pass on once support was pulled, and his heart only finally slowed and stopped when his wife assured him "I've got this CJ, don't worry, I've got the kids and the cows, you go on home now".

I can't even type that without shaking.

I hardly knew her before they wed, and not much more before he passed away. She became much more than the mother of my nieces in the wake of his death; she's well and truly one of the strongest people I know, and a true sister to me. I'll never be able to thank her enough for giving him peace enough to let go in his final moments. She's not much of a dancer or a card player, and she can't so much as hit the side of a broad barn with a bow, but I like singing with her in church, and she's helping me learn to quilt now.

I read somewhere that grief is just love with no place to go. So tonight as my throat aches with thoughts of CJ, I'll pour out some of this love. Into my dogs, my horses, my plants, my nieces, my sister-in-law, my sister-in-law's new boyfriend, and God, who I know is in control and has a Plan, who has overcome the grave, and whose will I submit to even if at this moment it's painful. Because I know He keeps His promises.

"I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:

And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

Ride on Cowboy, see you on the other side 💙

#personal #grief #mine

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