Jason

Today was my brother's birthday. IS my brother's birthday. Jason was born in 1970 and was the youngest of us three kids. He was not afflicted by the anxious brain that is passed on through my paternal line and that my dad and sister share with me. He didn't seem to doubt himself, and couldn't understand the rest of us being so nuts. He was easy going, affable, goofy, and collected friends like few others that I know. He was an uninspired student, much more interested in anything other than his studies. He took a cooking class in high school and in doing so found something that he excelled at and was excited to be doing. He later graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY. He was amazing and confident as an adult.

We grew up in a family that was full of love, fun, intelligence, music and travel. It was also dark, privately miserable, frightening, fraught with dysfunction, and isolating. My siblings and I were pals and cohorts as well as in competition with each other for a limited amount of positive attention. The bond was very strong as a result, even if we had differences that inhibited our really valuing each other when young.

As his big sister, I had the unmitigated pleasure of pounding bullies on the school bus who were picking on my brother when he was small. I got to show him my special hiding place in the woods near our house, and got to be generous and take him along sometimes when I went out with my older (= cooler) friends. I went and picked him up in the middle of the night when he wrecked his motorcycle and didn't want to tell my parents. I bought him beer when I turned 21, and made sure he had rides home when he was too drunk to drive. I got to feel older and wiser, and he allowed me to feel generous with my attentions.

He saved my butt several times. I went to college in Boston near our hometown, and he lived there too. He once appeared out of nowhere in a bar when I was being hassled by a particularly nasty man and I was actually concerned for my welfare. I hadn't ever seen him be manly, tough and mean, but he put on a very good show and shook off the nasty man and then took me out with him and his buddies for the rest of the night. I spent a good amount of my twenties fairly miserable, clinically depressed and either self medicating or on antidepressants to keep myself afloat while I was going through therapy to exorcise the family demons, as well as my own personal ones. He knew this and used to show up at my house in western Massachusetts for unannounced visits. We'd go out to the movies, to a bar, to the nearby reservoir to sit and look at the stars. He'd return to school after a day or two knowing how much it meant to me for him to visit.

He died shortly before his 23rd birthday when he was hit by a speeding taxi on a dark and rainy Boston street while riding his bike. He was just starting out his life with a new job, a new apartment, beginning to realize his dreams. He eventually wanted to open up a brew pub, making his own beer and cooking great food. He wanted a wife and kids, and thought that it sounded like a great idea to be the mayor of his town when he got a little older. He could have done it, too.

This is the first time his birthday has come around when I have children. Their existence has made his death, his active non-presence, all that much more painful. My children will never have an uncle they are close to, given the current makeup and location of Homestead Mama's family. The loss of my brother is ever greater since we are a family of two moms, with grandfathers who are in their mid- to late-60s.

I am saddened that he never really knew me as a happy person. I was on the arduous path of learning how to quiet my decidedly unquiet mind when he was killed. He only ever knew the weenie men I selected as boyfriends (I didn't come out until I was 29) not the wonderful, loyal, robust, beautiful woman I finally chose to spend my life with. Jason would have loved Homestead Mama, with her strong work ethic, lack of bullshit, and her quick smile. My certainty that they would have gotten on famously is painful and pleasing in the same moment.

The anniversary of his death each labor day weekend is never as hard as each birthday that passes without him getting any older. Homestead Mama called me today to suggest that we think about having an 'Uncle Jason Day' as the kids get older where we remember him for them, talk about him and try to give him a little bit of presence in their lives. I'm not sure that can be done without being maudlin and creepy, but we'll see. That she called to offer the suggestion moved me to tears.

I'm going to be hugging my own children a lot today with the memory of my brother Jason in the front of my mind. The losses in life make the gifts that much more valued, but I'll be goddamnedif the losses don't keep knocking the wind out of me.