Day 37 of the Apocalypse, Ground Zero, Gerton, NC pop. 231

My mother sent me a notification of my brother Bryce’s memorial, which is being held next week near Washington, DC. A square image, with his name, birth and death dates; his picture; and the date, time, and location of his memorial. A calming blue font holds the information together in a sorrowful, yet appropriate way.

I notice immediately that his last name is misspelled. “Churchwood” instead of “Churchman.”

This is the third of her three sons that she’s organized a memorial for in the past three years. That is too much death, and too much life, to memorialize. Not catching this detail with his last name, which has also been her last name for 57 years, is a trauma response. Details are one of the first things to go. Your mind sees what it wants to see, instead of what is actually there.

In his photo, Bryce looks exactly like our father did at his age. Puffy rings under his eyes, a hallmark of too much alcohol over too long a period of time. Eyes that reveal the pain of loss, missed opportunities, and grief. An untrimmed beard just beginning to grey. His mouth, not even attempting a smile. Dad and Bryce both died at forty-eight years old.

The photo divulges more than I want to recall about Bryce. In my mind’s eye, I still picture him as a young boy, playing with toy cars and homemade wooden blocks on the floor of his bedroom, making “Vroom, Vroom” noises. Happily living inside his own make-believe world.

I knew the ending of Bryce’s life before it was even written. He knew it too. He called me the day our brother Alex died by suicide, in early August. Bryce was startlingly honest with me during that ten-minute conversation.

He told me that he didn’t blame me for separating myself from our family so many years ago. That he knew this was the only way I could protect myself. That it was okay that I was taking care of myself. That he was so glad I had a husband and a happy life. Alex told me the same thing in our last conversation, three weeks before he died.

Bryce also told me he always thought he would be the first of us to die. I responded immediately with, “I did, too.”

I knew the drugs and alcohol would kill him after the first time he overdosed when he was eleven years old, and I found him naked and strung out on the floor of his bedroom before school.

Even so, when I learned that he died from an overdose, my first thought was of that conversation we had only a few months ago. Did my comment tip him over the edge? After all this time, was he waiting for me to tell him that I knew he would die?

That’s a detail that I will never know.

Details matter. But just like our mother, I’m also missing so many of them right now. In fact, I am becoming immune to the details of the devastation surrounding me. They have become brown noise in the recesses of my mind. This is how I cope with living inside of them day in and day out.

Driving home from Asheville, I pass by piles of giant tree trunks and limbs, piled up haphazardly in yards, or along the road, which is still littered with downed power lines. There is mud everywhere. It keeps sporadically raining here - not enough to cause more mudslides, but enough to keep a sheen of dirt on everything. We are surrounded by shades of brown.

I drive by a house that no longer has a roof, and another one missing a side. I notice myself shying away from looking inside these homes at destroyed belongings. This is my way of protecting my neighbors' privacy, and honoring their loss.

The highway parallels the creek-turned-river, which now houses crushed cars, trailers, and homes. The water keeps a steady pace, maneuvering its way around these objects.

The Baptist Pastor drives past me in an excavator, cleaning up trash, which is everywhere. Along the roads, in yards, floating by in the river. “Storm debris” or “disaster debris” are the terms now used to explain this overwhelming proof of devastation.

If I pay too close attention, the debris might consume me, too.

Instead, I focus on what is new. Fresh gravel covers a muddy temporary road. Giant rocks fill in the gaps between the road and the driveways. A mailman, delivering mail on that new road.

I don’t know how my life will end, just like I don’t know what my world will look like a year, or five years, from now.

I hope it will look like our community still coming together and doing what we need to, to support each other. I hope that our hearts and homes will be rebuilt.

I hope that when I drive through our community, I will no longer feel the need to protect myself from the devastation because I will be surrounded by fiercely protected life.