Freeze Out

"What stands in the way becomes the way.”--Marcus Aurelius

There, I said it again.

The words popped into my head on Sunday, and I immediately asked myself, “hey, isn’t that the name of a song?”

Yes, in fact, it’s a 1941 tune written and published by Redd Evans and David Mann. Vaughn Monroe and his Orchestra recorded a version in 1945 that reached No. 1 on Billboard's chart of “Records Most-Played on the Air”.

Bobby Vinton’s version, the one I know and don’t particularly care for, spent four weeks at the top of the Billboard Chart in 1964, before being ousted by The Beatles’ “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

But I wasn’t thinking of the song when the phrase came to me. I was thinking about how many times I’ve said some version of “I wish Peter were here” since my brother left this world three weeks ago.

I said it on Saturday when I was helping my auntie defrost her refrigerator, a job we’ve both been putting off for weeks.

It’s an older model and probably should be sent off to the appliance version of Valhalla, but I still thought it would take me an hour, and I was planning to check out a production of William Inge’s Bus Stop in the Village when I was done.

However, there was so much ice packed into the freezer that it looked like a scale model of Antarctica.

I chipped away with a plastic scraper and then a knife, but I was getting nowhere fast. My auntie warned me not to damage the refrigerator and to let the ice melt on its own.

And this is when I thought of Peter.

He was such a neat freak that I know he would’ve given me all kinds of advice on how to get rid of all that horrible ice.

In fact, his daughter, my niece, tells me that cleaning out the refrigerator was Peter’s specialty and I’m sure he would’ve wrapped up this arduous chore in a fraction of the time it took me to get clear out of Ice Station Zebra.

It took hours, but I was finally about to pull out chunks of ice from the freezer and toss them into the sink.

I never did get to see Bus Stop, but at least I helped my auntie.

The Bells Are Ringing

Last night I watched the first episode of Resident Alien Season 4, which Peter and I both love. We really enjoyed leading man Alan Tudyk’s hilarious attempts to act like a human being.

“I wish Peter were here to see this,” I said to my TV screen.

I recently took a grief counseling session through my company, and the therapist recommended a book called How to Carry What Can’t be Fixed: A Journal for Grief.

“Grief isn’t a problem to be solved,” the author Megan Devine writes, “it’s an experienced to be carried.”

I’m being going through these periods where I think I’m okay—that I’m over the loss of my brother—and crying because I miss him so goddamn much.

For years I’ve been meditating every morning for about 20 minutes as part of my morning mental health routine that includes affirmations, qigong and visualization.

I’ve been having trouble focusing for the last week, where my mind wonders and I daydream or fantasize, or do anything but stay in the present moment.

Then the timer goes off, I’m taken completely by surprise, and I realize I’ve accomplished nothing.

This morning the time sounded and I realized that’s how our lives can turn out. We’re messing around, avoiding our problems, putting off our dreams with one excuse and after another and then the bell tolls for thee. You’re out of time.

One lesson I’m trying to get out of Peter’s loss is that nothing is guaranteed, that our lives can end at any minute, so there’s no sense in waiting around.

Maybe processing grief is like defrosting the refrigerator. You can’t force it away; you’ve just got to let it melt on its own.

I’ve scheduled another session with the grief counselor on Friday, when the next episode of Resident Alien is going to be broadcast and I wish Peter could be here to see it.

There, I said, said it again.