Eddie Again

Eddie

I wrote this five years after my brother Eddie died. It was nearly Easter, and I dreamed that he was standing before me and I was comforting him.

It was a very real dream, and  when I woke up I was crying, and these were the words that came to me.

Five years have somehow turned to twenty, and I still feel this way sometimes:

Easter Sunday’s on the rise

and I see only rain-filled skies,

no redemption, no recourse, resurrections of remorse.

There is no refuge from regret, there is no way that I’ll forget.

I cannot stand, I cannot run. I cannot do what is undone.

In desperate dreams I seek him still

and find him through the want and will,

embrace his body, frail and thin

and feel the bones beneath his skin.

I tell him all I should have said,

and wake up weeping in my bed,

hearing now in present tense the messages in silence.

None of it was my fault. Life just isn't fair. But maybe I could have done more to let him know how much I loved him. And I'm not posting this to air out old sadness or darken your mood. I'm posting it to tell the world that Eddie lived and mattered. His life was  hard, but it never made him mean, and maybe that's the measure of greatness. In this season of Easter, springtime, hope...and whatever you believe...let's be a little kinder than usual. Fewer regrets will ensue. That's all.