It occurred to me today that there is some connection in my life between death and guitars, as strange as that might seem.

* * *

In a couple of weeks, we will remember the fifteenth anniversary of my only brother’s death. It hardly seems possible to me that it has been fifteen years that he’s been gone. My three children, all high school and college age, were so young when Steve died as to have almost no memory of him today. So much has happened in the years since — so many developments. Progress that’s been made and I often wonder what he’d have to say. Changes in the world, and in the lives of the people who love him the most, and I’d love to be able to share those things with him.

When Steve died, there were a few of his earthly possessions that became my possessions. Many of these things I still consider to be his — when I hold them, I think of them as his. My children have inherited some of what was Steve’s — their uncle’s. Of all of those items, two of the most emotional for me are his guitars — a cheap, cherry red Series 10 electric guitar and a nicer Gibson Epiphone acoustic. When I took these items into my home, I swore that I was going to learn how to play them. Jennie, my wife, even went so far one year as to go through the work of having the Gibson refurbished so I could learn how to play on a nice instrument.

In fifteen years, I’ve not learned to play the guitar. Mostly, I’ve learned how to dust instruments that no one ever uses. I’ve learned how to feel guilty about opportunities that I fail to take advantage of.

But, in the past couple of days, I’ve gotten closer. Due to another death.

* * *

Back in early July, a cousin of mine died by suicide. And, as distant as I am to most of my cousins –unfortunately– this death has been a bit harder to deal with. Maybe the nature of the circumstances. Maybe the guilt that I feel for not being a better relative. I suppose that we all have people to whom we could stand to be a little closer, relationships that we could be doing more work to cultivate. As Frost once said, “way leads on to way.”

I’ve felt guilty more than once in the past four months about his death, as many of us certainly have. Whether or not it’s right for me to feel this way, I wonder whether or not I could have done more to be a better cousin, a better friend. More on that in a little bit.

A few days ago, my mother and father and I went to help my aunt with some of my cousin’s belongings. A truly strange experience, if you’ve never had the pleasure, for lack of a better word. I felt a significant range of emotions when we were looking through piles of this and stacks of that. This item would stir up this old story and that knickknack brought to mind that old memory. I was excited to see certain things and happy to learn things about the cousin that I’d not done a better job of getting to know. Going through those things, I was (and am) grieved by his death. I was also curious, and frustrated, and weirded out. Who’s going to end up fingering through the different attachments that I have for my MagicBullet? Who’s going to make decisions about which of my space heaters ought to go to whom?

So strange. And sad.

Of course, I tended to gravitate toward the things that had cords and cables attached –> if you know me, this makes sense. Ever since I was young, whether it was a yard sale or a dumpster dive (yes, I used to jump into dumpsters as a kid, especially if there were speakers or other A/V equipment), I’ve always been drawn toward used tech and the story that it sometimes tells. I found a pile of old video game equipment at my cousin’s house — controllers and game discs and cabling and such. I laid claim to a video game system that seemed to be broken (it was the second of two such systems, the other one still attached to the TV in the living room) and some other parts and pieces. Among the pile was a video game called Rocksmith. I’d never heard of it, but it was in amongst some Guitar Hero games that I grabbed. My aunt and I shared some stories about video games, including the story that I told about my son Garrett watching me play Guitar Hero when he was just a lad.

More about that in a minute.

* * *

The year is 2008. And, as long as I end up living, I will never forget what I did in the days immediately after my brother’s death.

I worked on his laptop.

His wife –widow– told me, when we arrived in their neighborhood, that their laptop was malfunctioning and that there were so many photos on the laptop’s hard drive that needed to be retrieved for the obligatory photo collages that people would look through during the funeral services and wakes. So, that’s what I did. I focused my grief and anger and fear and confusion after Steve’s death into the repair of his laptop. I got it running (or maybe I got the photos off of the drive, I can’t remember), and the photo collages were built, and I contributed an answer in a time of so many questions. While we all cried and held each other and tried to find answers, I was working on getting that laptop going. It was my mission. My focus.

It was what I could do, when I knew that I felt helpless in just about every other way.

That laptop eventually ended up in a recycling pile, no doubt. And those photo collages are no longer being poured over by mourners. But, being able to do that thing made me feel focused on something other than the grief. It distracted me.

* * *

The pile of my cousin’s belongings that I brought to my home kept me busy most of this past weekend. Some of the things needed to be cleaned. I cleaned those. Other pieces needed to be repaired, and I repaired those. As I was doing it, I thought of my brother’s laptop. I thought about my cousin’s suicide. The distraction of having something to fix. The feeling of being useful, even if it’s never going to be the case that my cousin wants his malfunctioning video game system to be repaired.

When I got the game system repaired (it needed a new hard drive), I loaded the Rocksmith game. It’s apparently Guitar Hero on steroids, in case you didn’t know. In fact, with a special cable, which just so happened to be in the pile of cables that I took from my cousin’s house, you can hook up an actual guitar and learn how to play it, via the game. As of the moment when I got the whole ball of wax working, I’ve been playing my brother’s guitar plugged into my cousin’s video game. Two deaths. Two inheritances. And me, trying to put the pieces together to be able to do what I said I was going to do.

* * *

I’m not sure what I was hoping to say with this blog post. Maybe it was more about catharsis than anything else –> expressing a wound. But then again, perhaps I can tie this big giant mess of my emotions up with a few closing thoughts.

1) I’ve heard it said the you ought to use things and love people, and not the other way around. Maybe I would have more time to be a more involved friend or family member if I was less interested in gaining things and fixing things and playing with things. I’ll work on that. Maybe, you could work on that, too. Put down that thing you’re doing (other than reading this blog post) and go tell someone how much you care. It might be the case that they need to hear it more than you know.

2) I’ve owned my brother’s two guitars for a decade and a half. And, while there’s no guarantee that I am going to be a world-class picker anytime soon, I can say that I have this cool video game from my cousin to help me along the way. I guess, sometimes, the pieces don’t fit until you’ve completed a bigger section of the puzzle. And that’s okay. The plan is the plan. The important thing is progress. Be further down the line tomorrow than you were yesterday. Toward your goals. Toward being the best that you can be.

3) I think the one thing that I most want to say comes out of the way that I felt, coming home from my cousin’s house this past weekend –> although we might sometimes feel very alone, and although we might sometimes get stuck in a darkness that seems so deep that there is no way out, I want you to know that I am here. If you’re reading this and you need someone to talk to, if you’re stuck and alone and needing someone to help, or just to listen, I AM HERE. I know that my guilt is mine to deal with, and I should have been a better friend to my cousin. But, I want everyone reading this final sentence to know that I am here, and I’ll be by your side in a moment if you tell me that you’re stuck, and it’s dark, and you need me to be there for you.