Excerpt from April Fool’s Day Double the family by Julie Ryan McG
His face was washed away from the cool spring air as his father exploded into the family room, and he threw an overcoat into his sofa arm.
“Scootover, boy,” he fell between my siblings, then he patted his leg and called out to Lizzie. She climbed onto his lap, her strawberry blonde pigtails spread across his chest. Jenny and I fell on a braided rug and stepped into my dad’s feet. Our dog Gigi scrambled and was raw in my lap. We repeated the question that Mrs. Seits was not quite an hour ago.
Dad closed his eyes. His blue eyes were bloody statements when he opened them, and his smile was thin and forced.
“Your mom will be fine. She’s tired. She will need to stay in the hospital for a few more days to keep up with the rest. Mrs. Seits will be here until then.”
He gave my brother a sharp eye as he passed his fingers through his wavy Auburn hair. “You’ll help her out, right?”
They saw their father in their eyes, their faces were sole and nodded.
“It’s fine,” Dad said, and the hint of his usual hollow smile appeared. “We promised your mother to call her after dinner. Lizzie, wouldn’t that be fine?”
My dad stroked my sister’s soft hair for a moment. He then kicked out the unwelcome news. “Children, you have a brother, Mark Edward. The doctor was right. When he was born this afternoon, he was not breathing.”
I stiffened as my dad suffocated and pulled the boy firmly on him on the couch. His chin fell, tweaking the top of Lizzie’s head. Sitting on the floor, I moved near Jenny, our shoulders
And touch your arm. We stared at our father. None of us knew what we had to say.
His voice was thick and measured as his father spoke again.
“Tomorrow I’m going to pick you up from school and then we’ll go to the funeral home and make some arrangements. I want your help.”
The boys blinked at our dad, and Jenny and I took a gap between us. None of us knew what this entailed. None of us had the nerve to ask.
“Actually, dad,” Jenny and I managed to go out.
The next day, instead of walking home eight blocks of after-school home as we normally would, the five of us gathered around St. Cretus’ flagpole. When we stacked up on the Family Station wagon, my brother insisted on who had to ride the shotgun.
“Neither will get it, Dad cried.
Dad wasn’t used to losing his calm. So, in the three blocks of car from St. Cretus to Hallowell & James Funeral Home, none of us spoke. In the car park we chased him like a duck chick. In the bright waiting room, we gathered around James, until he emerged from the back office and shepherd his family through the process of burying his loved ones. Jenny and I blinked at each other, just as the funeral director explained the process. Our personal brand Morsecode telegraphed how welcome and crushed this experience was.
When it comes to choosing cas for Mark, my father, a brother we had never met or had, was the first to see Jenny and me. I like white stuff and I said that right away. Jenny agreed. Something about the purity of that harsh white cas seemed appropriate to a soul who had never committed an earthly sin.
“That’s decided,” Dad told Mr James. “I’d like something white.”
My dad picked up Lizzie and hugged her, his eyes filled. “Now your children have angels in heaven and are looking for you.”
I liked how it sounded: an angel looking for us. He’s far more kind than what the doctor said. The fully formed, full body male child was strangled to death by a cord intended to give him life.
After the cas choice, we followed my father and Mr James to the front desk. My dad signed some papers and wrote a check, and we stacked it in a dusty station wagon. But instead of heading towards the house, my dad surprised us and drove us down 55 streets to the Queen of Highland Dairy.
In the parking lot, Dad dug out his wallet and handed Jenny and me a $5 bill.
“Let the kids order anything. Order vanilla Sunday with extra hot fudge. Nuts too. We’ll be waiting here in the car.”
Jenny and I grinned at each other. Dad certainly loved ice cream and chocolate.
Outing to the dairy queen is the last thing I remember about the death of my brother, Mark Edward. I don’t remember chasing the troops into the family cemetery or witnessing small white cas hanging down in a hard, merciless spring land, but I know that happened. I also can’t remember whether my mother was there for the burial or if she missed it. If a typical two-day Catholic awakening or funeral chunk occurs, its memory is also blocked. But I know this: Grandma Mimi arranged one of the full-size Ryan family cemetery plots used to detain Mark.
Her comments about dinner one night still ring in my ears. “You know, the cemetery director said there was plenty of space on that plot for another small cas if necessary.”
My mother messed with the gravy boat while my brother and I stared at my parents and grandmother with open mouths.
Dad’s face was beatred. “God is forbidden, Mom.”
My grandmother’s feelings, although insensitive at first glance, were offered with sincerity. Grandma Mimi was welcomed by a generation who respected fruge Isa. They found all their purpose. If something broke, you didn’t throw it in the trash can, so you fixed it. So, like I’m thinking about Grandma’s comments now, I’m not criticizing her. What I hate is that my grandmother’s statement needs to be seriously considered one day.
Over the past 50 years, I often visited the Ryan family burial sites and stood on my brother’s grave marker. No one said that, but the thought must have crossed everyone’s hearts. Looking back at the tragedy, it may be a crucial moment when we began to question the doctrine of Catholic faith.
Why does a loving and tolerant God allow bad things to happen to good people?
After burying my brother, I thought my parents might have finished adding them to our family. As I lay in bed and contemplated the trauma unfolding around me, I wanted two outcomes. First,
The heartache that my parents faced with building an American family is coming to an end. I also hoped they would see the family they had gathered and say, “This is enough.” Because they wanted us to be sufficient. Each of us may have used their guidance in fostering parents’ time and attention, our interests, honing our identity, and discovering a sense of purpose. However, our people’s energy was thin and widening, so we were often left to our own devices. Some of us, especially Jenny and I – were thrown under this independence regime, but some of my brothers hit some big speed bumps later in life.
For many years, I have considered my father’s request to accompany him to Hallowell and James. I don’t know if it’s our parents’ idea to include us in our funeral arrangements or if it’s a medical professional’s suggestion. Anyway, it provided closure, connected us to each other in a heartbreaking way, strengthening us as a family unit. Despite our different ages, each of us understood that our younger brother, Mark Edward, was born and he had died. He didn’t just disappear. A year has passed without us acknowledging the date of his birth and death.
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A few days after my mother returned from the hospital, I met her in the cafeteria. She sat alone, staring at the window in front of the park, her brown eyes tired and her mood was groaning. I asked her, “What’s wrong, mom?”
She fingered the rosary beads on her lap and said she was thinking about the Mark. My heart melted. After we hugged her, Mom studied the veins with her hands and shared details about my sibling’s death.
These images still remain for me. She bowed her head as if to offer a quick prayer for the peace of his innocent soul.
My mother looked up at me. “The doctor said the cord got caught in Mark’s neck several times. It cut off his breath. It was probably the pop I heard.”
And this is the part that stuck to me, the wisdom I had to portray frequently in my life.
Mom reached out to my hand, her dark eyes were big and serious, “Julie, life is a fragile gift. We are not in charge of how long we live or when we join the Lord in heaven. .”
My mother’s faithful words were then true. Today they still do so.
In my life, I have thought about how lack of control relates to many things, including my adoption. Adoption occurred to my sister and me, just like the circumstances that led to the death of my brother. We didn’t say this about the matter as my mother could not have an impact on Mark’s life and death situation. Mom’s attitude of accepting that we cannot change has allowed her to cope with the many losses she experienced when building an American family. It provided examples of my adoption and useful philosophy to get closer to life. When we accept that we are unable to fully control the events in our lives, frustration and anxiety will ease their restraints, acceptance and forgiveness are possible, and the path to joy and gratitude is not too long. It’s not being there.
My brother Mark ended up leaving a trace of him in this life, despite him being dead before we knew him.
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Julie Ryan McG is an American writer, domestic adoption, and the same twins. Her first memoir, “Two Daughters: Search for Identity, Family, and Attribution,” was released in May 2021 and won multiple awards. Her work has been featured in Story Circle Network Journal, Brevity Nonfiction Blog, Imprint News, Adoption.com, Lifetime Adoption Adoptive Family Blog, Adoption & Beyond, and Severance Magazine. Her personal essays have appeared in several anthology, including “Real Women See Through Her Eyes: Story Circle Network) and “An Art of an Unbearable Crisis Time” (she writes). It’s there. Her collection of essays, “Attribution: Conversations about Adoption, Family and Relatives” (Muse Literary), released in November 2023. Understand who you are, where you belong and what you belong to. Julie splits time between northwestern Indiana and Sarasota, Florida. “Two Times of Family: Love, Loss, Memoirs of Sisters” is her third book. For more information, please visit her website. juliemcgueauthor.com.
Source: Spiritual Media Blog – www.spiritualmediablog.com
