Category Archives: accepting change

My Sister Rebecca’s Birthday

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Today is my sister Rebecca’s 65th birthday. She died at home in 2021. That she is not alive to celebrate and experience her birthday is a merciless, unjust, soul-splitting reality. It’s an agony.

The condition and conditions my sister was found in when she died were heartbreaking. She is not the first I’ve seen murdered by addiction; it tried to kill me with alcohol. It took me time to learn (fully digest) that the sentence, “You’re not responsible for your addiction, you’re responsible for your recovery,” is a sentence built out of fact.

I still can’t write about Rebecca at length. I start to sob. Mine is a heartbreak that’s accompanied by anger. Not at Rebecca. Not even a little. The anger (fury) results from those adult family members who were living with my sister, saw the condition she was in, and did nothing.

I will write more about my sister, Rebecca Jill Kahrmann. I love her still, my whole wide world.

What will not be

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I have reached the time in life when I am beginning to understand and accept some things will likely never be. I have come to believe, quite firmly in fact, that by accepting what will not be we are freed to accept what is and what will be.

Certainly accepting some of the things that will not be means experiencing sadness and, in some cases, loss, neither a particularly pleasant experience; but life is not ended by these experiences, nor is its value diminished. I accept, for example, and have accepted for some time now that I will never again have a relationship with family. Although I did not realize it nor see it coming at the time, my relationship with my family ended the day my father died. I was 15.

However, I have a friendship closing in on 40 years with Michael Sulsona; we are actually brothers at this point. His sons, Vincent and Philip, grew up calling me Uncle Peter and in my heart and soul they are my nephews.  And while I would have weathered the storms of life, Michael’s presence and the presence of his boys have made managing the storms a lot easier. I love them with all my heart. I am blessed.

I have come to believe too that at this point it is unlikely I will ever have the relationship with a woman that I’d like to have; one deep-heart committed under the same roof sharing the daily strides of life. There are few gifts in life more wonderful than waking up next to the person you love. But love and relationships have many forms, they are not cookie-cutter made, even though we are raised by well-intentioned misguided folks to think so. Once we gently disengage from that myth we are free to love in ways we  never thought possible.

And then there is my writing, the part of myself I am closest too. Getting a book published is not all about quality writing. What gets published proves that. Hell, while The Da Vinci Code had a good story line, it was some of the worst writing I’ve ever encountered; the only cliché the book left out was It’s quiet, too quiet.

When it comes to my writing, my job is to  write one piece of work at a time, send them out when they are complete, and then get to work on the next peace.

Life is good, not always easy, but good. Remember (please) that accepting what will likely not be will free you to experience what will be. And hey, when you notice you’re there when you wake up in the morning you know things could be a helluva lot worse.