Saturday we said goodbye to one of the best and brightest men I know, my brother Bruce. Never in a million years did I think I’d outlive him and even further from my mind was the fact that he would choose to take his own life and leave us all behind. I can’t imagine the grief and sorrow he must have been living under all the while masquerading as a happy well-adjusted person. No one who knew him suspected something so dark was living in his soul. All his friends and family have been living in a fog asking themselves if there was something they had missed, something they could have done differently. I’m sure this is the same way all survivors of suicide victims feel. I just never, ever thought that this would happen twice in my lifetime to two people I dearly loved.

Bruce told me that he and Dave were considering purchasing burial blots in the beautiful Lakeside Columbarium at the historic Bellefontaine Cemetery and Arboretum in St. Louis. He described it as a beautiful, serene area overlooking a lake. He even hosted his 55th birthday celebration at the Cemetery. (Technically, he won the party in a silent auction.) I wrote about that party here.

My brother-in-law said shortly after Bruce died that Bruce had always said when his time came he wanted a “kick-ass Celebration of Life” and my brother-in-law came through in spades. After a short, personal family service where Bruce’s ashes (along with his fur babies, Mable and Mackenzie) were interred in the wall, we made our way down a short hill to the large heated, floored tent. Dave had asked a special group of family and close friends to speak and share their stories and remembrances of Bruce. There was an open bar with top-shelf liquors, appetizers personally serviced by waiters, champagne for a toast and a buffet luncheon. It was standing room only in this large tent, filled with so many people whose lives Bruce had touched and who loved him and were mourning his death.

When it came time for me to speak, this is what I read:

I never once imagined that I would be standing up here speaking at a Celebration for Bruce.

I remember the night Bruce was born, I was sharing a bed with my Grandma Maggie. Dad came to the door and said “Jeanette is fine. She had a boy.” I sat up in bed and said “a boy!” in a whiny twelve-year old voice. I had wanted a sister badly.

When our brother, Steve, died, at his celebration of life, Bruce spoke about how Steve had taught us to hug. We didn’t come from a demonstrative family, so other than our Grandma Maggie and our Aunt and Uncle, Mable and Edgar Moore, we just didn’t get a lot of hugs. This didn’t mean we weren’t loved, we just weren’t huggers, you know, those cold Germans. So Bruce and I, sort of as a joke, came up with a “fist bump” as an alternative to hugging. We’d fist bump, laugh and then hug.

On my birthday in July, Bruce wrote to me:

Happy, Happy 70^th Dear Sister! You deserve the best day!
You’re a blessing to us all. Looking forward to next week’s party. (Fist bump) and hugs!

When Dave asked me if I wanted to say something today, I couldn’t think of what I could say or if I could even say something without really breaking down. Then I saw this poem and it expresses my thoughts better than I ever could:

If tears could build a stairway and memories were a lane
I’d would walk right up to Heaven and bring you back again.
No farewell words were spoken, we didn’t say goodbye,
You left before we knew it and only God knows why.
Our hearts still ache in sadness and many tears still flow,
What it meant to lose you, those that love you truly know.
We know you wouldn’t want us to mourn you any more,
But to know the happy times that life still has in store.
Since you’ll never be forgotten we pledge to you today
A hallowed place within our hearts, is where you’ll always stay.

I’ll love you forever and miss you for always.

Fist Bump!

After the speakers, what could have been more appropriate than a toast and Bruce’s favorite song, which he truly lived to the end:

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain
I’ve lived a life that’s full
I traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

He did it his way and my life will never be the same.