Today Southern Los Angeles was hit by a tornado and there have been torrential downpours, land slides and floods all over the state. This somewhat frightening and powerful weather seems adequate however, since today is also the two year marker of my brother Eric dying.
I will never forget the call I got from Dad telling me the news. It was Saturday morning and I was still dozing in bed but was initially happy to see Dad's name pop up on my phone. My happiness faded as soon as I heard my fathers voice though. He said he had some bad news and my first thought was that Grandma Edith had passed away (who out lived them both as it turned out) so when he started talking about Eric I was confused. Eric?! Dad explained that he went riding on Fridays with friends (Eric had been a big motorcycle enthusiast for a long time) and that he wrecked his bike and had died. Grief and sadness overwhelmed me. Eric was only 22 years old, and was my fathers only son. A son he had very much wanted and was very proud of. And while often we joked over the years that I was first born, so still Top Kid, even if I was not the right gender, I knew losing his only son was...well, there are no words for it. My brother, who I was just starting to know as an adult (he was eight years younger than me), was gone.
The next few days are a blur, with updates on Eric's service and funeral from Dad several times each day, and by mid-week Rhea, Josslyn (then just 10 months old), and I started the slow drive up to Oregon. Weather was not on our side. It had been raining a lot and snow was forecasted over Grants Pass so we took the coastal route, which makes the trip a good two day drive. We arrived in Portland a day before the funeral. Dad barely made it. Coming from the eastern part of the state, he and Mary were driving though snow and nearly wrecked several times, one of those times a true near death experience where Dad had to drive off the road into a snow bank to avoid being slammed into by a giant truck that had fallen on its side and the back end swung clear across the freeway. Dad said it missed them by inches.
It snowed over a foot that day. More snow in Eugene than in a long time. Eric's funeral was still packed. Eric was a recruiter in the army, and though I had struggled with this since I am not only opposed to war but of the armies recruiting tactics, Eric was well respected by his colleagues and recruits and loved being part of the Army life. It was hard to see his Army friends, these big burly men, break down and cry at the loss of my brother. Eric had always been a golden child, both literally and figuratively. He was over six feet tall, blond and blue eyed and had a smile that just warmed you. He was a show stopper when he was a baby, he could make check out women at the grocery store blush. It was evident at his funeral that he had been very loved. Army vets provide a Flag Line and Missing Man escort at funerals, something I had not seen before. I was so struck by these men (some in biker gear and leather, others in uniform) standing solemnly outside the funeral home holding flags with snow drifting down on them. It was one of the saddest things I had ever seen.
There was a graveyard service as well, and so we all made the trek out to Veneta after the service in Eugene. The graveyard that Eric was to be buried was near the lake we had grown up swimming and fishing in, on a hillside looking down. It is probably beautiful any time of year, but covered in snow that day it was just a sight, so breath taking. The service included a 21 gun salute which spooked geese that were in the neighboring field. They all took to flight, thousands and thousands of them, squawking and raising such a racket they literally drowned out the remaining part of the salute. That was the second moment that struck me and has always stayed with me. The beauty of that sky filling up with those black necked birds. It was like all of it, the weather, the birds, was either Eric's way of being present, or the worlds way of protesting his death. Standing there in that moment, I committed it to memory, of how I felt, looking down that hillside and then into the sky filled with birds while shots rang out in the sky to salute my dead brother.
Later on, when Dad and I had a chance to talk about the day he remarked on the birds and how cool he thought that whole display was, that they had really out done the intended salute. So often, Dad and I would notice and feel the same about these same things. There is a story, about the day my mother died (in 1993), that I often share and have even written about, but it was Dad without prompting who had the same experience and observation about that day. Several months later when it was Dad who died I felt especially lonely thinking about what details he and I would have discussed regarding his death and how while there were others I could share my observations or impressions of those moments, there was no one who would have already saw and felt the same way.
On this day, the 19th of January, I will always miss both my brother and my father. I will miss the charm and life they brought to everything, and I will admire this crazy weather no matter what it means, nothing or everything or somewhere in between. 
