Pictures of You

Dear Mike,

Aunt Martha visited a couple of months ago.  She brought some great pictures.  There is an awesome one of you skateboarding which for me is heartwarming to see.  I guess it's because it's you in your element but before I can remember some of the more difficult times together.  I also love how mom is looking at you in the first picture.

Mom and you

Christmas

Same Christmas

I love how excited you look.

At Grandma and Grandad's, August 1980.

Matt and Mike licking the batter, August 1980.

Reading.

Red hat Christmas, 1982

Mike and Matt playing roller hockey.

Mike, Christmas 1984.

Mike, Matt & Andy, Christmas 1984.

Squished family photo,1985.

Skateboarding, 1988.

I tried to put them in chronological order.  It's a little hard in the middle.  Just looking at these makes me smile.

Love,
Gabby

My Great Sadness

Dear Mike,

I really miss you.  I so often struggle this time of year and frankly it's unfair since your birthday is what starts the fall for me and then the remaining three months are a whirlwind of birthdays, feast days, Saints days we celebrate, the anniversary of your dying and the holidays.  Did you realize that we start with your birthday September 28, our feast day September 29, Kerrigan's birthday October 15, Halloween, The Day of the Dead November 1, and All Saints Day November 2, Corrianna's birthday November 4, Fionn's birthday November 9, Sabrina's birthday November 17, the anniversary of your death is also November 17, Dad's birthday November 28, Thanksgiving, Andy and Drew's feast day is in November I think, St. Nicholas Day December 6, St. Lucy's Day December 13, Andy's birthday December 23, and Christmas December 25?  This is in conjunction with normal life.  It's all important to me.  I appreciate all of it.  I want to share the traditions with my family and with my nieces and nephews.  And I didn't include the holiday baking, crafting, and sewing that my soul enjoys.

BUT, inevitably the great sadness, my great sadness, appears.  And while I don't succumb to it in the way I did before I had kids, I struggle to be present and to have the drive to accomplish and celebrate what I hope to.  I feel badly for my heart not being in it.  I hate just trying to pull off the kids birthdays rather than bathe in the joy that they bring.  I regret that sharing traditions and the joy of this season with my children is a struggle for me to provide even a half-hearted experience.  Kids FEEL that.  They will carry that with them.

I miss you.  I miss you every year, countless times a year, but this year I miss you more.  It's not the same pain as other years.  I miss our family too.  I anticipated Dad, Matt and his family and Mom coming out to visit this Christmas and in February but life happens and trips have been cancelled or postponed.  I totally get it but it's still sad for me.  It's the first time I can remember being truly homesick except there's no home where I'm from.  It's the first year I'm irritated Mom's in Ireland and not closer by.  I'm not mad at anyone.  I just miss my peeps.

When grandma or granddad died, I forget which one, mom asked if we wanted some of the ashes from the cremation.  I thought that was so weird at the time.  Now I get it.  It sucks to live so far away from your grave.  It would have been nice to save some to spread somewhere close by so I could visit you.  I came across your shirt I stole while redoing the closet.  It's the one of the skull with the patriotic top hat, I think.  It's incredibly worn out.  I used to sleep in it.  It has so many holes I had to safety pin it to the hanger.  I should burn it, carefully, and save the ashes and spread them at a river here.  Then I could visit you.  Maybe Kerrigan can help me with it.

Love,

Gabby

P.S. I didn't realize it was the sadness I felt until I discovered the tears chomping at the bit to get through the door, the door of my heart.

I Can Cope, Could You?

Dear Mike,


I often find myself looking back at some of my really tough times in life, struggling to cope.  I didn't even realize I didn't have the skills to cope.  Or, they weren't honed enough for me to reach into my tool bag and grab a tool for the difficult thing I was faced with.  I had a few brief periods where I drank too much.  I just didn't want to feel. Later in life I started cutting.  That was by far the most shameful thing I have done.  While I'm not ashamed of it now...it has taken some time to feel strong enough to be honest about that time in my life.  I just consider that I was really sick.  Struggling so much I could not get out of the very deep dark hole I had fallen in.  It was a release of the self hate building pressure until I felt I would explode. And then I'd cut myself with a No. 11 Exacto blade. Usually at least twice.  I have thirty or forty scars from it all on my forearm.  I don't care that people can see it now.  If someone were to ask me about it I'd first think that was a really bold question, but I'd be honest.  What is there really to be ashamed of.  It's the same as any other harmful coping mechanism, just not as popular and it leaves a permanent reminder of that time in your life.  When I was hospitalized after the first miserable attempt at cutting myself I learned a lot.  I learned it was like anxiety and that when I feel that restlessness inside I should do something with my hands.  I learned you should never reread your journals.  You re-experience all those horrible feelings you may have released and you experience those feelings all over again.  I learned to say what I was needing when my needs from someone were not being fulfilled.

When Fionn was around 2.5 years old his usual meltdowns had gotten especially horrible.  These were not the typical terrible twos tantrums you hear about.  They were increasingly louder and becoming more violent in nature.  I began to feel fear from them sometimes.  After discussing what was going on with someone knowledgeable, whom I respected and trusted, it had never occurred to me I hadn't taught him how to express his feelings, given him words for his feelings, showed him other safer actions he could do to express how he was feeling.  I hadn't given him skills to cope.  It was the second blind spot I realized I had in parenting.  The first really being rather insignificant in comparison.  I was embarrassed and felt so badly that I had partly created what was happening.  We worked for a solid year before really seeing the fruits of our labor of giving him these skills, words and tools to use.  I see now we still have to really keep an eye out and help him to reach into his tool bag and choose a tool to cope with whatever he is faced with at the time.  Sometimes it's dark in that bag and there's no light nearby.

I wonder...could you cope?  What were your tools?  I can think of obvious unhealthy tools you had.  Drugs, alcohol, maybe even some adrenalin rushes from extreme risk taking.  As I think more I would say art and even poetry.  Dad has one of your journals and you have this poem or rap that you wrote about the cops.  Then I wonder how much art is an expression of one's self vs. one's feelings.

I don't bring up this topic to blame anyone at all.  It's just that now that I'm a parent and have been I can see that despite the very best of intentions we all have blind spots or at least I do and I wonder if you LEARNED healthy, effective ways to cope or you happened upon them.  I can imagine how much of what you went through would have been so much more difficult to handle with a missing tool bag.

Love,

Gabby

P.S.  I've taken a somewhat conscious break from this blog.  While I feel it is a good thing for me,  I struggle to find the balance of having the emotional space I need to dig around in this part of me and to be present for my children.  But I was reminded that this great sadness keeps showing up and it may be valuable to listen to it.  I do truly believe that but it's really very scary for me to do.  I don't exactly have a good track record.

New Year's (Without You) Resolution

Dear Mike, 
It was your birthday yesterday.  It didn't even occur to me until Dad pointed it out that you would have been 40.  That's so hard to imagine.  When we were young(er) I saw you as being so grown up.  It was only recently that it occurred to me REALLY how young you were when you died.  I was waiting for you to get your life together, each year thinking "this is the year".  Now I see you were truly so young.  You must have felt so much pressure from all of us to "get it together".  Having been on this growing up journey myself I see now that not having it all figured out by age 24 is pretty normal.  I mean some people do but they also are likely to have a rude awakening as they age and have realized all they did not get to discover about themselves maybe from the responsibilities in life they incurred, intentionally or not.  This summer I also discovered that I have lived nearly half my life without you.  THAT is just crazy for me to realize.  Embarrassing too.  The loss of you has harshly impacted pretty much all of my life since you died.  The few years after I often thought, "when will it let up?".  I would ask doctors, friends, therapists and even research how long does grief last. Lots of people and info say one year.  I haven't checked recently but now if someone were to ask me I would say "It's individual".
I've never been a big New Year's person but I got to thinking about it.  I seem to treat your birthday as a New Year's of sorts.  I anticipate it whether I'm looking forward to it or not and now even try to make preparations. But much of how my year goes depends on how this time of year goes, your birthday and the anniversary of your dying.  To make it more complicated there's numerous birthdays and Feast Days now too.  While writing this I've only just discovered that beginning yesterday, your birthday, at sundown, is Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year's.  Maybe a part of me is Jewish at heart.  I keep thinking to myself each year that this is the year I will accomplish all this stuff I've dreamt of.  Sound familiar?
We celebrated your birthday with a special dinner yesterday.  Julie and Sawyer came over, Kerrigan was working late and we had tacos and chocolate eclairs.  Well profiteroles really, but they tasted sooooo delicious.  We're going to continue the tie-dye tradition but really we'll do that this weekend.  I have spent a lot of time prior to your birthday this year thinking of what I need to do to continue to heal.  I was surprised to realize I still have these wounds that are not healed yet.  When I heard about Katie that's when I knew I wasn't all better.  Part of me feels if I can just get all the art of my journey, part of life with you and mostly of life without you, some big wounds will close.  My heart was pounding when I put the link to the blog on facebook but after the initial shock I felt soooooo much better.  I could focus, paid more attention to my kids and just had this relief...that it was done, my feelings were out there, and I wasn't hiding anymore.  Since I felt that, now I really think I'm onto something. I don't even think I could imagine the incredible release of energy when that project in my mind is complete.  I hate to even think that a New Year's resolution is pointless because frankly I do but I want to succeed at this one so badly.  It's like now I WANT to wear my heart on my sleeve, when for so long, really, the feelings and images have been this dark spot in my soul where only on lookers could see the repercussions of it's presence.
Love,
Gabby

P.S. My favorite thing about this blog is you're always looking at me.  I love the connection with your eyes, your smiling eyes.

Pictures of You

Dear Mike,

I heard about a someone playing a video of old pictures at their loved one's memorial service. I would have loved that. Here's one I made of a few pictures I had and from others.

Love,


Gabby

Your Soon-To-Be Birthday

Dear Mike,

You know last year when your birthday was coming up I couldn't wait for it. Really, because it actually looked like I might accomplish what I had been hoping. A birthday to celebrate and honor you. I had attempted it the year before and we managed to do the dinner. We eat Mexican food because your first job was at Casa Burrito and we have chocolate eclairs for dessert because at least when we lived in Van Nuys that was your favorite dessert. I used to go with mom to the bakery. I can still see it in my head. Last year I got it together enough to do the tie dye too. I remember you enjoying it so much and so it's really the best thing we can do together in your memory. It was FANTASTIC. For one thing the recipe you left in that book was perfect. I managed to get the last ingredient and I just couldn't believe how great they turned out. They were so incredibly vibrant. And it was easy, even with young kids.

Soaking in soda ash solution.

Drying a bit.

Trying out the spiral pattern.

We each did our own.
After the dye application.
Isn't Fionn's awesome?!?!

This year feels different. I'm more tearful. Not sure why although I can think of several contributing factors. The trigger from R loosing her cousin in such a violent way, a classmate in high schools death, maybe even seeing that woman get hit by a car. But all I can think about is the art. The art I've kept in my head for what, 6 years now. I have to get it out. For you, for me. It's just scary. I'm afraid it won't turn out how I envision it. But I want to put it out there. I want to show my journey, even see it myself. I want to let go of the incredible pain some of it holds. That has to be it because when I look at some of it with my minds eye it brings back so many horrible memories. Some of it is quite beautiful though. That would be awesome to look at and enjoy. I hope this year I can make all that art from inside me.

Love,

Gabby

My Awakening

Dear Mike,

Anna recommended this book to me a couple of years ago, The Shack. I was struggling so much with the loss of you. All these years I've had these crashes where all I can think about is the loss of you, how you died, and would obsess with trying to find the man who killed you because I wanted some more answers. The TRUTH whatever it may be. This time, a little over two years ago, I was pregnant with Corrianna. Anna, Ivan, and Deb all reached out to me and so I read the book which changed my life. There is this line in it, "Pain has a way of clipping our wings and keeping us from being able to fly, and if left unresolved you can almost forget that you were ever created to fly in the first place" - William P. Young, The Shack. It had never occured to me that these huge parts of me had been paralyzed by pain. I had been wondering where the old me was.



Since reading it I have been healing wounds I've had since your death and this spring some new growth in me started to appear. We planted a vegetable garden.




Our family poured our hearts into it. It was the best we could do on our budget and in the amount of time we had. It spurred so many other projects in the garden and we accomplished them.

This one's from our dahlia bed. Isn't it "bodacious"? Now I've got this itch for some competition. My next hurdles are to run a 5k, particularly the Starlight Run, and to participate in the Petal Pedal. This fall I'm starting my second attempt at the Couch 2 5k and I've found a Couch 2 100k for bicycling so I can prepare for the Petal Pedal.

Your ability to decide, "this is what I want to do so I'm just gonna go learn all I can about it and then make every attempt at getting the end result I desire until I've achieved what I set out to do" is something I feel like I can only hope to accomplish but I'm going to try my darnedest. I thought my life was too messy and bogged down to break away and give my whole heart to something I dreamt of. Now I know I was just dormant, but I'm re-emerging. I hope to pass this powerful trait of Uncle Mike's down to my children so they can know just what a go-getter you were.


Love,


Gabby

Ode to My Brother

Dear Mike,

K's obituary was published the other day. It talked of her college accomplishments, her recent jobs, a new found calling in a career of beekeeping with her dad and how much she loved her dog. The biggest impression left was her beautiful smile and how much fun she had in life. That is how everyone seems to remember her. Before your obituary was sent in it was a huge ordeal. I had no say in what was written but don't even remember anything but the argument surrounding what picture of you would be attached. At the time my favorite picture of you was the one of you working on the Christmas village house trying to fix it and you had long curly hair. It seemed to be the most recent picture we probably had of you but also the one that said the most about who you were. After reading K's obituary I'm sad that yours was so vague. I don't remember it saying anything about you, what you enjoyed doing, what you looked forward to, what your accomplishments were. So here's my ode to you, my oldest brother whom I dearly miss, and am privileged to remember fondly now while we celebrate your life rather than continue to endure the pain of your loss.

Michael Christopher Cullen was born September 28, 1971 and died November 17, 1995. He loved to read. He could read the fastest in our family which for some reason was a big deal. He was always taking something apart and creating new inventions. One time he made a hovercraft out of the purple "Miami Vice" hairdryer and a shoe box. It really worked too. Another time he took apart an old Xerox machine and the ink powder got everywhere. He was a skateboarder in a bicycling family. He could always be seen with his skateboard doing tricks or just getting around town. He was into graffiti style art, pen and ink drawing, silk screening and tie-dye but I think he finally settled on tie-dye. He once wrote a rap about the cops too. I wish I could hear him do it again. He even tried his hand at lip-syncing. He and his brother Matt did the song Rockin' Robin. It's the only moving picture of him that I know of so if you're reading this and you have a copy I'd love it. Although, I remember him looking rather awkward. He really enjoyed music but I only really remember stuff from the 80's. The Pet Shop Boys is probably what makes me think of him first. But, I know he also liked techno or whatever they played at the underground clubs or raves.

He had one of the biggest hearts of anyone I've known. He cared so much for others, was willing to do most anything for anyone to help them and so often put the people he cared for first. He needed to put himself first more often. He had this incredible ability to persevere. He'd fall or fail but he'd pick himself back up and was immediately devising a new plan to make it happen, whatever "it" may have been. He spent so much time learning, researching, planning, and dreaming of the life he wanted to live. I can remember him staying up nights doodling and jotting things down in his notebooks. I so often thought to myself this time it will all work out for him. "By the time he's this age" I frequently thought.

Mike was also so well known for his grin. His friends called him "Grin". And as I recall his tagging said "Grin" too. As I write further I admittedly am writing based on what little I know. I realize I don't have all the details and that the topic may evoke a lot of feeling for some but I want to be honest about the Mike I knew. He enjoyed smoking pot. I imagine that if he ever had owned some land and lived a self sustainable life like he dreamt of he would have been growing pot too.

I'm sure I'm forgetting tons of stuff but I guess I've said what I'd like to. He's incredibly missed by his family and friends. I bet he has no idea how much, especially by me. I like to think he's our guardian angel. Fionn and I pray our guardian angel prayer and light the guardian angel candle each night and I think of him keeping watch over us.

So Mike, that's what I wanted to say. One thing I have realized as I wrote this, which has taken me a while, is that it's crazy how our experiences can taint our memories. I was so sure of how I remembered your obituary. But, since receiving it it from a librarian in Ventura I actually wonder if I had ever read it. It's not at all how I remember and the picture is the one I would have chosen. Not the one mom and I argued over. I'm putting a copy of the obituary in too.

Love,

Gabby

Skateboards 'n' Oregon

Dear Mike,

I was at Hood River with the family on the Fourth of July. We went to Rotary Skate Park that had a BMX track for Fionn to ride on. But really it was pretty much a skate park. Did they even have those when you were around? I don't remember them, but now they're cropping up everywhere. Fionn and I were sitting at the edge of a "punchbowl" watching this guy with long dreads test out a skateboard that was like a long board.

It was pretty awesome watching him move so smoothly round and round. After he'd finish a run he'd go back up and chat with his buddies giving feedback and bouncing ideas of ways to improve it back and forth. They kept at it. Before you knew it one of them would produce another board to try out. They were all pretty unique looking. I could totally see you being there, had you lived, with skateboard inventions of your own. That so would have been YOU. Later we were walking to the car to get something and these same guys were at the trunk of a car. One of them pulled out one hell of a skateboard something. It was like a skate board on a ski with a long leash and the Velcro part you'd imagine attaching to your wrist was really big like it must go around your waist. "Dude, I wasn't expecting this!" It seriously looked like something you'd come up with. It really got me thinking. Had you ever even been to Oregon, much less Portland? It seems like this would have been the place for you. All the outdoorsy stuff, the art, sustainable living. You would have been in your element surrounded by people who were just like you. You kinda seemed like a pioneer of sorts in LA. But your ever constant interest in inventing, skateboarding, pot, tie dye, and your dreams of living off the land would have been right at home here.

Love,

Gabby

P.S. You're heavy on my mind lately. R's cousin was murdered the other day. I am shocked that I would meet this circumstance more than once in my life. It and you are all I can think about. So I'm digging a patio and keeping my hands busy.