my brother

I finally realize he’s gone and I know why he jumped.

It was because of his high school Italian girlfriend’s abortion.

There were probably people after him in Maui.

The cops wouldn’t confirm or deny the report at first, or rule it a suicide. They found the body under water at the foot of the cliff near where his van was parked a week later.

We were all so shocked. It’s been 6 years now. And my mother went two years later. She just couldn’t be without him.

Those two were a force.

He was a windsurfer, a carpenter, and a beautiful guitarist.

I’ve been in and out of the hospital since then, just not able to cope with this. I’m letting go of so many things now, and the world is such a different place.

Something happened to my defective pud during the last, most recent hospital stay–an alien surgery???!!!–I woke up in the morning and the poor hurt, nagging bad-nerve clitoris was tidied up. After a lifetime of horrible suffering I am sane and out of pain.

Other things like that happened at the hospital. I was fighting for my life. One morning I woke up completely empty of urine, for instance.

Today I was remembering the incredible moment in the cottage before I came here, when I was finishing up on following the course of St. Mary Magdalen, and I was in the cave in the cliff over the sea of the Golden Legend being fed the Eucharist by birds; looking out the upstairs door of the 250-year-old building onto the lane.

Steve and I were close in age. We cramped each other’s style sometimes and had to be separated. He was very tall; I was not. He was an extremely beautiful man; but he was getting old. My Manhattan college boyfriend hurt his feelings in a way I didn’t see at the time; but it led him to his marriage to a Manhattan woman in the Hamptons and I understand now that I just had to take a back seat for a time. It was cruel what happened to me and my husband and son and I in that regard.

But we had beautiful South Florida.

He’s gone now.