forgetting to remember

My little brother has been gone over five years now. He's a constant but it's just a very strange thing, remembering and not remembering. I had lived two hours away for five or six years and would often go weeks or months without seeing him, sometimes that long without talking. Life's funny that way. Time simply passes. I'm having a difficult time remembering "special" times with him, about him. I've just forgotten things. And there just was not enough. A close friend once wrote a song - he's long since forgotten but I could play the entire song with every word correct, he thinks that's strange, but it was a great, great song - "undertow" - with the line "I'd feel better if I just forgot". I could think that about a number of things perhaps, or rather, might consider thinking that. But I wish I held tighter to the memories. Once they're gone, we've lost something and are lesser because of the absence. Remembering is often strange and secluded and lonely but it's necessary. Memories are the silent things that shape us and grow us. Five years gone.

letter never sent...

I had a really good story to tell but as I sit to type, it's too personal, too something. And I am massively selfish with the details, even when typing to an unknown blogosphere. Some things are better left un...

facebook v. blogger

I put up a page on facebook, a fan page if you will. A couple dozen have "joined" or "liked" or whatever the hell facebook terminology is. But I can be a little more free and easy here, since this is more my space, something I do for me, and it's out there, but as of yet, no one has discovered it. And that's fine, either way. So I thought I'd begin, as regularly as I feel compelled, to write a bit about who my brother was, leaving out things I imagine he'd prefer left out.

page on facebook

New page on Facebook - "In Memory of Hunter Whitaker". Feel free to post stories, tales, reflections, photos, whatever.

Some wounds heal...

Some wounds heal. Others do not. Some blokes face reality however tragic. Others choose not to. It's been five years now. Five years is a long time. Five years ago my children were 2 1/2 years and 6 weeks old. Just babies who didn't get to know their daddy's brother. But they'll indirectly learn of him, more as they get older, albeit somewhat after the fact. And they get the fact that daddy's brother is also their cousin's daddy who is gone, they get that. There are photos and I do occasionally call one of my boys Hunter, not sure why. My oldest reminds me of him in several ways, my youngest reminds me of him in many ways. Healing and grieving and loss, it's just semantics. Try, don't try, whatever. Mourning is complete and necessary and uncompromising. It's the delicate balance of life and death. But what the hell would I know about it. Five years and my garage is still stacked with everything he owned. Some wounds heal, others won't. Not yet.