{"id":2477,"date":"2019-01-14T23:28:56","date_gmt":"2019-01-15T07:28:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2477"},"modified":"2019-01-15T08:16:52","modified_gmt":"2019-01-15T16:16:52","slug":"first-thing-this-mourning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/?p=2477","title":{"rendered":"First thing this mourning"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

Who knows why it was today?\u00a0 <\/span>Because I wasn\u2019t adequately sad, what with a firm, final goodbye from someone I loved but hurt badly enough they\u2019d finally had enough? Because\"\"<\/em>\u00a0the sun was out? Because it was today, it just was?<\/p>\n

This was always going to be one of the places where I\u2019d leave some ashes. It was a crisp lovely day long ago when Leslee and Jim and I leaned up against the tall stone wall that retained heat from a sun that would not set.<\/p>\n

We marveled how it just hung there barely moving as crowds flowed by and musicians played for change dropped into guitar cases, the sun perpetuating the afternoon like the singer held on to a refrain of a song we really liked.<\/p>\n

On that day we were on the island looking at a boat I thought I might buy. I needed their opinion, we shared values and they had far more experience. After thoroughly going over the boat in a marina 45 minutes to the north, we came downtown to bask against the wall in this exquisite city, then find some Indian food.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t know on that afternoon, what, five years ago? Six? how little time was left. So much has happened since, and it\u2019s hard to think that Jimmy died coming up on two years ago. Hell, I think I\u2019ve been boating around the San Juan Islands for well over a year with the box Leslee sent with Jimmy in a baggie. Maybe that horrifies some, I think he’d smile, hell, he might have just given me those words.<\/p>\n

The time wasn\u2019t right, until today.<\/p>\n

God, I miss him. Not like Leslee, of course, or his sons or his grandchildren. But he was my older brother, I trusted him to be him, and I loved him as if we\u2019d spent our whole lives together and not just part of the last half, and even though I always knew he was smarter than me, more compassionate, had higher standards, had achieved more, showed higher honor.<\/p>\n

It was hard at times knowing I wasn\u2019t his best friend even though he was mine, that I may not have even been in his top five. He was that loved by those kinds of people. Of course he was. He had an impact, he was, it was frequently said, \u201clarger than life.\u201d Many wanted to bask in that glow.<\/p>\n

He could tell stories that would make him laugh so hard he could barely speak, about things he\u2019d done that most would want no one to know. Like the time he ate a bad taco or whatever from a street vendor in some South American or Central American town, then had to get on an airplane for a long flight back to the U.S. About how, when he got off the plane, men in hazmat suits came on board.<\/p>\n

I helped him at times, I think, I hope, when he would worry about things. He didn\u2019t know why he procrastinated when a legal brief was due, usually getting it done at the last minute. \u201cBecause your subconscious works on it the whole time, until you\u2019re ready to transcribe the \u2018story,\u2019 \u201d I told him. That seemed to give him some relief from self recrimination.<\/p>\n

He was a master at story. When writing a brief, he could put the facts into a story that was so persuasive, he had a reputation. He wrote simply but beautifully, better than me, and I was suposedly a \u201cwriter.\u201d He\u2019d clerked for one of the top legal minds in Oregon. He was qualified to present arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court. He wrote passages that were incorporated into U.S. law. He fended for the downtrodden, literally saved family farms, shook hands with Willie Nelson.<\/p>\n

No, he wasn\u2019t perfect but I loved him as much for his flaws as all that, for his occasional self-doubt, his deep need to know where Leslee was at all times and his dependence on her, his propensity to forget on occasion that he\u2019d told a story before.<\/p>\n

Like all of us, he had a warped mirror, at times. Others called him arrogant, not recognizing the difference between arrogance and brilliance and a willingness to express what he knew to be true.<\/p>\n

Those attitudes didn\u2019t bother me. I\u2019ve been called arrogant as often as he was, and I have a whole lot less to show for it. It was confidence in some situations, managing not to show insecurities in others.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d hang out, sometimes talking deep shit because that was my personality refuge, until he tired of that then would change the subject or go do something else. In Panama once they\u2019d broken the glass on a solar panel. I suggested we cover the shards with epoxy, and we filled the frame with a gelatinous goo that hardened into a glazing that worked well for a while. He thought that was pretty cool.<\/p>\n

He loved his own kludges, too, like the time he rewired the automatic control of the water maker on their boat so it operated manually. That fix got them by for a long time, and took some ingenuity to figure out. I think he talked about that more than fighting off banks who wanted to take family farms in the 1980 recession that nobody remembers any more.<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ll leave some ashes in Blind Bay, where he and Leslee watched me bring the boat he helped me buy and drop anchor for the first time, where he called my daughter the \u201ccrab whisperer\u201d and made her proud that she could coax claw waving crabs to let go of the cage so they could be dropped back into the bay or into the pot for dinner.<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019ll make a small boat of folded paper with a candle for a sail and send some ashes off. Maybe I\u2019ll send some down in a crab pot to lure the beasties in. I think he\u2019d think that was fun.<\/p>\n

This is the second time I\u2019ve taken ashes to special places. The first time was for my other older brother from a separate mother, Jeff, another brilliant man but one so haunted by the demons we shared that \u2026 well, never mind. Some of his ashes were spread in a large Montana Lake, left there as the first snow of the season settled in and roads were about to be closed, so that Jeff could join creeks feeding Flathead Lake and eventually the Columbia River and out to the Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

Which is where Jimmy\u2019s ashes will wash, the next rain, off the huge stones that make up the wall where the sun sets only with reluctance. Off the bow of my boat, too, where I spread some so that Jimmy could continue to guide me, from a place ahead of the mast.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m getting old, but I often think of myself as Jimmy\u2019s little brother. I refuse, as Clint Eastwood says, \u201cto let the old man in.\u201d The day will come when I can\u2019t drive fast cars and sail this boat and maybe I\u2019m already incapable of falling in love. I had to face that again, yesterday, when I read the word, \u201cgoodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe today was the day I spread a bit of ashes because it was a way of not saying goodbye. I put ashes in a place important that I\u2019d shared with him, with them, so that every day for however long I spend here, when I walk past that wall for whatever reason, I will be able to say, \u201cHi, Jimmy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if no one hears me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Erik Dolson<\/em><\/p>\n

Who knows why it was today?\u00a0 Because I wasn\u2019t adequately sad, what with a firm, final goodbye from someone I loved but hurt badly enough they\u2019d finally had enough? Because\"\"<\/em>\u00a0the sun was out? Because it was today, it just was?<\/p>\n

This was always going to be one of the places where I\u2019d leave some ashes. It was a crisp \u2026 Read more\u2026 → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[397,561,562,560,563,564,565],"class_list":["post-2477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-out-my-window","category-uncategorized","tag-death","tag-dying","tag-love-lost","tag-old","tag-romance-ends","tag-saying-goodbye","tag-spreading-ashes"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3mcOb-DX","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2477"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2489,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2477\/revisions\/2489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erikdolson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}