Memoir Genesis - My Brother's Birthday
In which I pay tribute to my brother, gone now almost 19 years.
Today is my brother’s birthday. Lynn would have been 70 years old. He made it to 51. Of those, the last 13 years were spent with major depressive disorder, actively suicidal.
So he had a good 39 years, though I don’t have a lot of knowledge about the few years leading up to his first suicide attempt. I can’t imagine they were very good.
How many good years does a body get?
He spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest, where I now live. This is the last region of the country for me to live in. And it’s the first time I’ve lived in the PNW on my brother’s birthday.
I have 12 to 15 deep, strong memories of my brother. He was 10 years older than me. We shared a room when I was young, until he moved out to the garage and hung tapestries on the wall (such a hippie). Shortly after that, he moved away. We stayed close, until he joined the church and became a pastor for the Assemblies of God. And then we didn’t. Even brothers go on with their lives. He had church and his family and I had literature and my studies.
My brother jumped from the Fremont Bridge in Portland in August 2004. In 2018, on Halloween night in New Haven, CT, I started writing about my brother. I wanted to understand what he might have felt standing on that bridge late at night. What did he feel? What was he thinking about? He had left presents, a note for his wife, a message on my answering machine that I wouldn’t get for about a month. After almost a year of writing, I stumbled against The Waste Land, never far from my side, and discoverd my way in to my memoir.
Because of the closeness between my brother and me, I had actually been writing memoir all along.
Now is a good time to subscribe. I haven’t erected a paywall, yet. I am providing the first two chapters of my memoir here. If you like what you read, I encourage you to subscribe to my substack as I’m gathering audience to support my push for traditional publication. I’m in the querying process now.
So, in honor of my brother’s birthday, here is chapter 1 and chapter 2 of my memoir - My Own Private Waste Land. Love ya brother!
I. The Burial of the Dead
1 – Slouching Towards Oblivion
Fremont Bridge arches to the sky,
icon of the Portland skyline,
longest tied-arch bridge in the world,
first in its class, of course.
Far above, a Peregrine falcon soars, 5
its widening gyre turning and turning
over the swift Willamette River.
From the nearby Pearl district,
the road unfurls like a nautilus to the bridge,
175 feet from the roadway, 10
381 feet from apex to river’s surface.
Either height would do.
In this cruel month, the dog days of summer,
from his long narrow room,
not even halfway a house, 15
slouching towards oblivion,
With best foot forward
and passionate intensity,
he scales the steel giant:
ceremony of innocence 20
ritual of despair.
His shadowy figure mounts the scaffold.
Autos “jug jug” on the roadway below.
An anonymous call. He jumps.
No rough beast, nothing but darkness was found. 25
At that height, on that night, surely some revelation was at hand.
What heap of broken images,
what blank card did you carry on your back,
mon frère?
In the morning, they found him floating near the shore. 30
Those are pearls that were his eyes.
= = = = =
2 – Obituary #1
Reverend Lynn William Hornbrook, 51, deceased August 15, 2004, is survived by his wife Jody, daughters Anna, Elly, and Mary, son Seth, two grandsons, Kyle and Logan, his father, mother, an aunt, two sisters, and one brother.
Ten years younger, I am that brother.
* * * * *
To me, he was the sun the moon all the stars.
The shallow pews curved gently like log benches at a terraced outdoor amphitheater. The pines of Portland filtered the slanted summer light through the large windows in the back of the bare church. Projected onto the front wall, photos cycled momentous events -- family births, weddings, graduations. His widow and children sat in front. His birth family, those who knew a different Lynn, sat in the back, unknown to the line of guest speakers: his pastor, psychiatrist, friends, his daughters, his son.
My hands shook as I stood at the podium. My voice cracked. I had never felt this broken. Tears blinded me like glittering diamond prisms.
I had been compared to my brother my entire life, every moment in some way defined by him. This wasn’t just a loss of a brother, my brother. If he was no longer, who was I?
When would I be stricken? When would I be smote?
Ashes to ashes
. . . fear in a handful of . . .
Dust to dust
He is the first one of my immediate family to die. I didn’t know this man, not really, suicidally depressed for years, bloated from meds. He had lost his laugh. I mourned for and eulogized the brother I knew. We shared a room until I was seven, until he moved into the garage, covered the bare studs with tapestries and his yellow poster, “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” He gave up his senior year of basketball to grow his hair long.
The corners of his eyes crinkled when he laughed. He protected me from my sisters and picked on me like only an older brother can, dunking me in the pool, karate chops, pink bellies. We hitchhiked in Hawaii, backpacking, just the two us. When I was eleven, I was the best man at his wedding.
Not long after he married, interpreting for the deaf in churches, he found God, gave up his hippie ways. Just like that, our parallel paths diverged, branches bent by contrary winds in a storm. He stiffened, became serious and studious, right minded. He may have found something, but I lost him then for good.
When he joined the church, he pulled away, kept his own family and children close. I lived in New Mexico and later on the plains of Kansas, separated from the family on the West coast while they enjoyed frequent visits. One summer, I asked if he would send his children to visit, just as we had visited our aunt and grandparents in Ohio when we were children living in Los Angeles, a family tradition. Without hesitation, he declined. “We won’t be sending the kids to visit.” A general pronouncement. I could hear his voice slide down the bridge of his nose. He didn’t approve of my unmarried cohabitation. When we finally decided to marry, he declined to officiate.
What was more important than family? Where did you go, brother?
His church was now his tomb.
This man who died, this wasn’t the same man who played catch with me, who taught me to throw a frisbee, though I could never match the grace with which he flicked his wrist and let it soar. I may not have known him, yet this man was still my brother. I spoke until my words lapsed into guttural keening and then a winter’s long hieroglyphic silence.
The wound paralyzed me. We were too much alike. It was a game of not if, but when.
* * * * *
In the ER, my thoughts turn to him. Here he is again, 11 years after his death, and I can still taste him in my blood. Is this the moment I rise to meet him?
Who’s there?
Like Hamlet’s father, his ghost won’t rest.
These fragments . . .
How do you survive the loss of such a brother? Indeed, how had I.
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Please let me know what you think of these two chapters. Would you continue reading? Shall I put an uneditable copy of my manuscript online for others to read? Any beta readers out there?
Have a pleasant week! AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) conference is coming up soon here in Seattle, along with my jump into the world of developmental editing.
Thank you for following along. Please spread the word as I continue to query and seek an agent and publisher for my memoir.
Until next time, I’ll . . .
Just keep writing.
My brother’s birthday is today and he’s been gone almost 17 years. He was 19 years old and his death is shrouded in mystery. It was a swimming accident but he was a strong swimmer. It was really nice to stumble upon your page and read your memoir. Thank you for sharing it. It really helps to hear about others dealing with the same things.
Hi Lee. I found your excerpts very moving, and, yes, I would read more. I have tried to write a memoir about me and my younger sister, dead ten years now by perhaps suicide, perhaps unintentional overdose, perhaps a bit of murder. Haven't found the form/how to approach it yet. She was also the victim of fundamentalist Christianity.
I am a beta-reader; at least, I have been for one author, Christopher St. John. I am also interested in the beta-reading process, although I am, for now, taking George's example to heart, and not putting my work out for critique prematurely. I am at work on a book, about a rabbit and an old Buddhist woman, which, perhaps is a backdoor into writing about my sister.
I signed up for Substack, and now I don't know what to do with it. I'm curious to see how others are using the platform. Thinking, thinking, thinking.
All the best, your fellow Story Clubber,
Nancy Gage