The above photo was posted to Instagram by my brother a few months into the pandemic.
He loved all creatures completely.
He loved nature. It fed his soul in the way being around people, especially ignorant a**holes (his words) drained him.
If he had his choice of what to do, it would almost always involve being outside.
Perhaps that was left over from him roaming the countryside when he was a boy, trying to make sense of the world. I am still so grateful for the times he let me tag along. ❤
Jason worked for a logging company with one of his best friends for the last few years before we lost him.
I know that being outside for his work was both a blessing and a curse.
The job was a hard one, incredibly physically draining, and he was 43 years old. He couldn’t claim to be young anymore, I don’t suppose.
It was hard on him.
The weather also doesn’t care whether you’re sitting down or busting your butt, it does what it wants.
Snow and rain and blistering heat were all parts of his days.
And then there was the mental drain.
He hated logging.
But he needed to provide for his family.
The animals who lived in those woods had always made more sense to him than most people, I think, so seeing them having to leave broke his heart.
And he saved as many of them as he could, looking ahead and moving them out of harm’s way.
He had the biggest heart.
He was the sweetest soul.
The little guy in the above picture had a sibling, and my brother saved them both.
From spiders that were taken outside instead of smashed, to turtles in the middle of the highway, to woodland critters most loggers wouldn’t give a second thought to, Jason stopped to lend a hand.
He was the same way with people.
If you were doing a task and he was around, he was going to pitch in and help.
He was so good and kind and loving.
And he was also a mess at times.
He had made some doozy of mistakes.
Because people are complicated. People are not only one thing, good or bad.
We all have both.
I never saw Jason filtered in only his worst moments, because I loved him bigger than the moon.
And that’s what love does. It helps us focus on the good in each other.
We all need to make sure that voicing the good we see in our people outweighs voicing the bad.
At times, because humans can suck, we only speak out to our family when we have something to complain about.
“You didn’t clean your room!”
“You promised you’d be home early!”
Those things might need to be said, but make sure they’re balanced with the good.
A person only has so much emotional energy, and the level is different for each person. If you drain their emotional energy by pointing out their faults, make sure you also build it by speaking the good.
“I saw what a great job you did organizing your backpack!”
“Thank you for working so hard to take care of our family.”
I did tell my brother the good I saw in him.
But I wish I had done it more.
I wish I had help him tight and repeated all his good into his ear until he heard me and let it soak into his big heart.
When we lose someone, none of us ever wish we had expressed more disappointment in them, do we?
So, why do we often allow ourselves to let those concerns be voiced more often than praises?
How important it is to feed our people positive messages.
To do our best to be a balm to their pain, because we all have pain we are struggling through.
I miss Jason every second of every day.
Suicide is brutal. Suicide grief is agony.
I miss my brother so much.
And I bet the woodland critters miss him too. ❤
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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White Fragility: Talking to White People About Racism | Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box | The Lack of Gentle Platonic Touch in Men’s Lives is a Killer | What We Talk About When We Talk About Men |
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Photo credit: iStock
internal image courtesy of author