It is June

It is June. The green buds have become leaves and through our windows the shrieks of swimming children trail.It is June and flecks of wet mowed grass cling to my sandals.
It is June and a few weeks ago it was fourteen and a half years since my brother and uncle died. It has been fourteen and a half years ago that the Christmas glitter became a cheerless memorial of our last days together as family. On December twenty eighth the tree lights began to blink "we're gone, we're gone" as we side stepped freshly opened gifts our faces became receiving rooms for pain.
Who can believe in death before it arrives? I never believed death would take our brother...our beautiful, vigorous, magnificent brother, or ourfunny, bright, energetic uncle...but it did. Despite their invinsibilty. Death visits us through different doorways, calling our identities as brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, children left behind. Death comes to us all whether we have resolved to let go or not.
It seems so incredible the the June breeze blows so gently after our brother and uncle crashed so violently.How can winter become spring and spring become summer without them? We are the keepers of lifetime relationships which have blown away in the winter night's air. No one else understands the freeze frame: the before-the-crash-after- the-crash that makes nothing safe for us.
Across the summer blue sky fly planes landing with baby cradle precision. We all had so many baby cradle landings with you. Seeing planes fly I want to reach over the horizon and pull you both back. On warm days, I see a long, lean, handsome man in cut-offs, on his ten speed, riding. My hand raises in salute. Then I remember.
I have so many reasons for you to be here: the trees, the grass, the wind, the rain, the love we feel, the bottomless outpour of weeping into our pillowcases at night and the grief that paralyzes us by day. This is love meant for you both, and we have been deprived of loving you. Our lives become smaller. Our hearts, protected. I speed read self-help books on grieving. I am angry at work and inconsiderate of my partner at home. I feel cheated and want to get even. I hope that if I am healthy enough and smart enough I will avoid pain. But the days move from winter to spring to summer to fall again and again, but everything is sad. The beauty of your daughter's face as she looks up at me, your son's eighth grade graduation, the daffodils I remember blooming in your front yard.
When this years' autumn comes, we shall miss you in a new way. The landscape will change hues and our grief will wear sweaters, gloves and hats. Leaves will fall over you graves and again the sun will move further away. And there is nothing we can do.