Tag: aaron

Legacy Writing 365:285

Something that’s been interesting to me during this year of compiling legacy writing posts is that it forced me to go through all my mother’s photos. After her death in 2008, I found that whenever I opened the trunk where I’d stored them, I could look at a few pictures, then I would start feeling out of breath, and I’d have to put it all away. These are the kinds of things we do when we’re ready, and if we can’t predict when that will be, we have to remember that no one else can, either. After years of listening to and trying to comfort people through losses, I’ve repeated so many times, “Grief has no timetable and no expiration date. Every loss is different, and every individual has a unique coping and healing process.”

Somehow it’s harder to say that to oneself, but fortunately, there are others who will remind me from time to time. I’ve found since April, I can’t look at any of Aaron’s baby pictures without feeling that same out-of-breath sensation, so I don’t push myself.

Many years ago, Lynne made a little outfit for a bunny for me from some fabric we both liked. I asked if she could make bears from that fabric, too. There was only enough fabric for one bear, so we dubbed him “Share Bear,” and said that sometimes he’d stay at my house, and sometimes at her house. Funny thing is, I think I’ve had him ever since! She’s probably forgotten about him.

Here, you see the Bunny and Share Bear posed in front of some flowers that Debby brought to The Compound and arranged (I’m sorry that they appear to be growing out of Share Bear’s head; they’re actually in a beautiful vase our friend Sarena gave me a long time ago).

I was reminded of Share Bear and the Bunny when I was putting some old photos away. I saw the envelope with Aaron’s name, and I randomly reached in and pulled out a photo without looking through them. Here’s the one I picked.

I don’t know who might have made Aaron’s bear, but it looks similar in pattern and fabric to Share Bear. I didn’t know Aaron when he was a baby. We lived so far apart that he was already eight when I met him in November of 2001. I’ll probably share that story and some photos from the occasion next month.

Little steps…

Photo Friday, No. 310

Current Photo Friday theme: Interiors


if I could do magic
I would go back to this moment
when he watched me shoot this photo
turning these knobs would get me inside
I would know the questions to ask
the words to say
I would hold out my hand
and help him walk through that door
nothing bad would happen
this would be just another photo

National Suicide Awareness and Prevention Week
September 9–15, 2012

1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Legacy Writing 365:223

In this photo from 2006, Aaron’s sitting on the couch in Mother’s apartment beneath a painting that she moved around with her for several years.

I can’t remember if she bought it during one of her Houston residencies or from a friend in Salt Lake City, but she said the reason she loved it was because the two little girls reminded her of Debby and me. When Mother died, Debby gave the painting a new home.

Whenever I see the photo below of Debby and me:

I wonder if that’s the image Mother had in her mind. I don’t remember the day it was shot or where we were, but I like having the photo set. I can see them so much better after I can scan and view them at larger sizes. Otherwise, I’d never be able to tell this isn’t just a group of strangers, but that the boy in front is David:

The photos make the water look all murky, but I think it was probably pretty clear.

That day was spent with Uncle Gerald and Aunt Lola and their kids–our combined families were aged like stair-steps: Terri, David, Bruce, Debby, Gordon, Becky.


Mother with Gordon. That may be Gerald and Terri in the background. When I got older and we went to visit their family in Mississippi, Gordon already had his driver’s license. On summer nights, he’d drive the two of us around their small town, and that’s when I realized how I loved being able to see people inside their houses, just reading the paper, watching TV, or sitting around the table. I made up stories in my head all the time about the people I saw on those night drives.


Debby, Bruce, Gordon, and Lola. It was Cousin Bruce and his wife April who gave me my first camera when I graduated from high school.


Lola, Gordon, Gerald, and Terri. Debby thinks that Aaron looked like Uncle Gerald, and I could definitely see his resemblance to Mother’s side of the family. I think Terri was the first of the six of us to get married–I sort of remember her getting married, but what I mostly remember is her clothes from the time of her marriage. She had a green satiny jump suit and a red leather outfit. I need to re-create those designs on dolls–very much of their period.


Debby, Bruce, and David–making sandcastles, or just a big mess?

It makes sense that this was the family from my mother’s side we were closest to, not just because of our similar ages, but because Uncle Gerald was Mother’s best friend as well as her brother.

Legacy Writing 365:220

Today Alex turns sixteen. I’m sure this has been a rough summer for him after losing his brother. Just glancing at his Facebook wall, I’m reminded of how many people love him and how many friends he has. I hope this is the beginning of a great year for him. I’ll probably wait a couple of months to talk about the first time I met Alex, so I decided to reminisce about the first time Debby did. She came for a visit in 2003, then she and I drove to Austin to see the boys. Just as they did with Tom and me, they immediately acted like they’d known her forever.

Alex, Debby, and Aaron

During our visit, we went with Lisa and the boys to a pizza place they liked because there were games and rides. We had so much fun with them. Here’s a grainy shot I got of Alex in action. I don’t know who that kid on the left is, but he’d better watch out!

Looking at the boys in bumper cars reminded me of going to Six Flags with Lynne as youngsters. I was a bit older–twenty-two–when she got this photo of me.

Today, Timmy tweeted that he can still do a cartwheel. I never was able to do one–Lynne could!–but I think it’s good for us to find ways to recapture the exuberance of youth.

Happy birthday, Alex, from the people and dogs of The Compound. Celebrate every minute of your day!

Legacy Writing 365:174

This is one of the first photos I took of Tim and Rex. In fact, I may have taken it on the day he came to live with Tim at The Compound.

And this is one of the last photos I took of Tim and Rex.

I must have taken a thousand or more photos of them in the six years between those two. I wish I could write a tribute to Rex and tell you all the things he meant to me, to all of us, but right now, I can’t. In any case, Tim’s words, which you can find here, are a loving testament beyond what I could say. I love them both so much.

One picture I can’t show you. When Aaron was here in March, he Tweeted a photo of Rex sleeping at his feet and said, “Proof! Rex is able to calm down and not jump on me.” Later during that visit, when I said I was sorry Rex kept jumping on him, Aaron said, “Secretly, I like it,” and made me laugh. When Aaron died and his Twitter account was closed, that’s one of the photos lost to me.

In Helen’s comments to Tim’s beautiful tribute to Rex, she said, “Rex’s energy is back in the Universe. I wonder where it will go now.” I’m going to share what I’ve been telling some of our friends. When I imagine Aaron’s beautiful spirit running through the Universe, now I see Rex running next to him. And jumping on him.

There’s no photo of that, either, except in my heart.

Legacy Writing 365:163

I’ve shared this photo on my blog before in a post about my mother, but for me, at least, it’s a rare glimpse of my brother’s kids and grandkids with him. I’m not sure how many photos may exist of any other gatherings, and I was never present for one, since everyone lives in different places.


My mother, Steven, Alex, Dave, and Aaron in front; Daniel and David in back.

Daniel’s youngest son Steven is the one who was born on September 11, 2001. Steven’s brother Dave spent that day with Mother while his parents were at the hospital. We talked hours on the phone in several different calls, grateful for the family we could celebrate in light of the national events that devastated us. My sister had two grandchildren born the same year–in August and December. Less profound but still something to celebrate: I helped give birth to the first Timothy James Beck novel that October. Such a surreal year.

Though David is not Alex’s father–Alex and Aaron have the same mother–he’s part of the family, just as Lisa is. Losing Aaron has made me feel those bonds more strongly than ever.

Legacy Writing 365:153

The circle that is creating…

This month I’m doing the sketches for my 30 Days of Creativity entries in this sketchbook.

I had to dig it out of a bin in the garage. It’s something of Steve R’s I saved after he died. He’d only ever doodled on the first two pages of it, I think planning Christmas cards he made.

I’m also using this artist kit that someone in Tom’s family gave him many years ago.

It’s funny how often Tom and I have both used it, yet it’s still in great condition. Whenever I use crayons, I remember a Christmas when Lisa, Aaron, and Alex were flying to Utah and had a layover of several hours at Houston’s airport. Tom and I drove out to spend the layover with them in their terminal. I realized how bored kids must get during a time like that, so we took them a giant-sized box of crayons and a couple of sketch pads. This aunt had forgotten how boys can be, because it didn’t take them ten minutes to have nearly every one of those crayons broken. It cracked me up.

I’m including this photo of Aaron with his mom especially for my brother because of the way Aaron’s goofing with his sunglasses. Hmmm, wonder where he got that from?

Several years later, Lisa had to work a few days in Houston and she brought the boys to stay with my mother. When they’d walk over to visit me, I plunked them down on the sofa in front of the TV (aunts don’t forget everything!) with a box of colored pencils and my angel books.

It was Steve R who originally introduced me to the angel books. Though I have only one of his drawings–unfinished–many people have done others for me through the years. Alex finished his that first day and gave it to me.

The next day, Aaron decided to take his home and finish it.

Being a kid, he never sent it back to me. But that’s okay, because I still have the memories of those days to cherish.

When he visited in March, he talked me into downloading Draw Something to my iPhone. We played it the entire time he was here, sometimes sitting right next to each other and giggling at our bad drawings and how we had to give each other clues to guess them. I asked him how we were ever going to manage when we weren’t in the same room, but he said we’d figure it out.

I have a screen capture of only one of my drawings for him:

Nothing cracked us up like a drawing he sent me one night as I was on my way to bed. I was so tired that I couldn’t figure it out–even though just from the letters, at different times I picked out “king” and “lion,” but never put them together. Thus I ended up passing and taking our game back to zero. Fortunately, he took a screen shot of that one and shared it on Twitter. When Jen saw it, she tweeted, “Surfing guy holding a yellow Peep!” Whaddya mean “incorrect,” Draw Something?! Aaron insisted that what I saw as a blue cowboy’s sacrifice of an Easter Peep on the back of a whale was unmistakably Rafiki holding up Simba on the cliff in The Lion King.

I was actually in the middle of drawing something in a game with Jen that morning when Geri called to tell me about Aaron. A few days later, when I wrote a letter to be buried with him, I included something that I knew he’d understand:

Legacy Writing 365:144

With this post, I am back on track with my once-daily legacy writing entries after almost a month.

I didn’t get behind simply because of the eight days I didn’t post when Aaron died. Even after I eased myself back here with a Photo Friday picture and gentle-on-my-system posts about Jess, Lila, the dogs, there were days when I simply couldn’t string thoughts together, much less words. I couldn’t possibly delve into the past with my heart breaking over the present. Or it seemed almost callous: This terrible loss has happened, and I’m going to talk about…what? What wouldn’t be trivial and meaningless in the face of a tragedy that’s broken the hearts of people I love so profoundly?

I know those days are far, far from over. Anyone who has grieved knows how long the process is. Years. Grief eventually weaves itself into the rest of your life, a part of it, but not the dominant part. But in its infancy, grief gives you days when you just can’t…anything. You can go through motions of those things you have to do. I hear myself making mental lists: just get up, brush your teeth, take a shower, eat something, sit outside with the dogs, sweep the floor, read your email, cook dinner, answer the phone, go to the grocery store… Some days I can’t do even those things, beyond the ones I have to do, which mostly involve the dogs. The adults around here, even though they also are grieving, willingly deal with take-out and dusty floors. The dogs depend on me, and they don’t know grief. They know only the moment and the needs that have to be met, so they keep me tethered to a bit of normalcy.

A harder thing is to stay focused even on passive entertainment, like watching a show, reading a book, listening to a conversation. My mind wanders. Or worse, it locks on remembered words or images I wish I’d never had to see or hear, and suddenly I’ve read ten pages without having any idea what they said, or the show is over and I’m not sure what happened, or I try to catch up with what the people around me are saying and I can’t. My brain is in Austin, in Nevada, in Utah, in Ohio, in Alabama, in Indiana, tuned in to faraway hearts that are aching, hearts that are ever connected to mine by blood and by love.

So…

Two lessons my father taught me when he died.


The first… Kind words and actions will not fix or erase grief, nor should they. I mourn because I love. You can’t take away one without diminishing the power of the other. I would not give up love to spare myself grief. But kind words and actions do recognize and honor my loss and my love. In that way, they help connect and heal me. It’s been twenty-seven years since he died, and I still remember who sustained my family and me.

The second… The only way not to be paralyzed by my grief is to express it creatively. My father’s death and other events in my life at that time left me almost incapacitated. I was scheduled to take my Masters comps and was so removed from that process that I knew I couldn’t pass. During a two a.m. study session, I shoved my books aside and wrote a poem about my father. It didn’t matter whether it was a good or bad poem. It opened a mental door I’d been keeping locked; going through that door was my first step toward healing. Sadly, because I’m getting older, and because I’ve known people with diseases that ended their lives, I’ve used this lesson many times: processing my way through grief through creating something, whether it was cross-stitching, painting, sewing, shooting photos, making quilt panels…

And yes, writing. So that’s why I will keep coming back to this environment I created, my little corner of the Internet, because no matter what I talk about or what I say about it, it’s all an affirmation of a life and a family and a group of friends to whom and for whom I’m grateful every day.

ETA: Related post: Aaron Buchanan Cochrane