I remember a particular pair of green Gap sweatpants that my brother Bill always used to wear. They were soft, and cozy... I often stole them. When he left his laundry out at the house if they were in there... they would not find their way into his basket but my own. I wore them around the house, and I wore them to bed. They were the best blanket you could ask for, and in them I was content. I can't say that my obsession was particularly because the Gap can make some fantastic sweatpants, it was purely rooted in the fact that my brother loved them and I loved my brother.
In November of 1996 my brother moved from Connecticut to San Francisco a few days before my 16th birthday. Saturday morning I remember saying goodbye to him, and being somewhat of an emotional basket case. That afternoon my Aunt Debbie took my sister Krystal and I shopping for the entire day and just hung out. I remember buying a new pair of sneakers, and I remember enjoying the afternoon's distraction. We pulled into the driveway, and as we unloaded everything purchased I sang a song in typical Kari fashion the entire way into the house, and just giggled. Walking into the house I was greeted by my mother who was talking to me about something I can't remember now and led me to the living room where the lights flipped on and "Surprise" was screamed. It was my sweet sixteen party with 30 or so of my closest friends from Young Life and Emmaus. It was a great moment. I was excited and felt loved, but there was a pang... an ache. That ache was for the brother I so dearly loved who was somewhere on his adventure across the country for his new big life in California.
I turned around and Bill was standing there. He had begun his road trip and turned around to be there for my birthday surprise. I didn't fall over, and I didn't pass out... but that ache I had felt deep in my heart was replaced by a love and appreciation I still cannot articulate. I opened the gift he brought, choked back the tears, and shared some time- and then again he was gone. The second time he left did not feel like the first. I had him there when I most wanted him, and in the midst of all those in the house I did not notice a single other thing... I felt loved.
In the preparing for him to go there was no address to send mail too ahead of him, and there was a lot that I wanted to say. So one night I sat on his computer that he left out in the family room and wrote him a letter. I saved it to the desktop and I trusted that it would be found when the time was right. I was sending him with a secret love letter and there was great comfort in that. I wanted to keep the beloved green sweatpants but I knew that I needed to return them. It was a sad moment, and I bought a pair of my own hoping that they'd be the same... but they weren't.
I can't remember when but at some point after the move I was going through and putting my laundry away and just going about my routine. I opened the bottom drawer of my dresser and for the first time I noticed what had been tucked inside... Bill's green sweatpants. I pulled them out and put them on, and just sat and cried. I remember wishing I had found them sooner because I had missed him so much, and well in 1996 there weren't cell phone's at our disposal and we'd go so long without talking, and I missed his voice... I missed the tickle fights and I missed everything spoken in the silent language of touch. The sweatpants were a life line to a brother that I missed, that I wanted to talk to, that I wanted to wrap my arms around.
In similar fashion I am about to say goodbye to Andrew Piper and send him with all the love and hope I can muster to the West Coast... days before my birthday. I know that my life isn't a movie, and that when I wake up on Wednesday morning three days after his departure he won't magically appear with coffee, and chocolate munchkins on my doorstep wishing me a Happy Birthday... but I do know that there will be an ache.
In the week or so since the news came I have thought about what I could keep from him, like my brother's sweatpants, that could bring some sort of comfort in the midst of this heartbreaking transition. I have not come up with any solutions to what will suffice, but I do know that the feeling I have about him leaving is a lot like how I felt when Bill left for California. I am proud of a choice made in believing that he is going where the Lord has planned, and I am humbled by his bravery to go in a direction that poses great distances between who and what he loves. I admire his certainty for believing that things are going to be "ok" even though I want a definition of what "ok" really means. I continue to struggle in having to grasp what can and will come by means of having to let go of what I know and love right now.
I'm not ready for the goodbye.
I'm not ready for communicating what I am thinking or feeling with words, when so often everything is said by our playful physical banter.
I don't know that I would ever be ready, and I can't honestly say I know what "ready" really means... so we just keep moving forward praying for some peace.
I have a thousand questions that I can't ask, and more that I don't even know how to articulate at this point.
Two weeks from today he goes.
Two weeks + 3 days I will have a birthday.
And its just feeling very much like 1996.
