My Brother’s Keeper: Still Grieving His Loss After 49 Years

“But I keep waiting for the night.  I close my eyes and hope you’ll find me sleeping. Cause in my dreams, we can spend a little time just talking. In my dreams, we are side by side just walking. Oh, the feelings that we used to know. The places we used to go are still there in my dreams.  On the front crossbar of your bike, we can go anyplace, anywhere you like.  In my dreams.”

“In My Dreams”, lyrics and vocals by James Morrison (2011)

April 20, 2021

Today marked the 49th anniversary of my brother Dennis’s passing.  In many ways, it’s a harder concept for me to grasp because ever since that awful day in 1972 his persona and memory has always been tucked closely inside of me.  As is our usual custom, Matt and I met for Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel this morning, the parish we loved as kids growing up. We then grabbed breakfast at The Daily Treat before heading over to George Washington Park where Dennis is buried in a plot that now includes Mom and Dad. The ride over to the cemetery is always sentimental, as we drive past the Ridgewood Lawns — our first neighborhood — and then Paramus Catholic — where each of the three Kirnan boys excelled academically and played for the high school basketball team.

I am 66 years old now and far removed from that life changing day as a 17 year old junior in high school and Denny remains my beautiful 19 year old big brother, the best friend I ever had and who I can still see in my dreams only the dream is always the same dream and it always ends the same way.  In the dream I am practicing basketball in the Kirnan’s backyard court, a sport I was really good at largely because my brother taught me so well and was my biggest fan.  As I make another long jump shot from beyond the 3-point line, I peer down the driveway of our house on Overbrook Road and I see him walking towards me as handsome as ever and he is waving at me.  “My God”, I think, “Denny didn’t die, it was all just a bad dream”.  “Denny’s back, he’s alive, he’s my beautiful big brother who is going to continue to show me the way forward like he always has”. He is going to take me for that first beer he had promised me the last time I had seen him on April 9th when he had dropped me off for pole vault practice at Paramus Catholic.  As he gets closer to me, I get even more excited – “Yes, Denny’s alive, he’s come home to see me”.  And then, in an instant, I wake up and it’s just another bad dream and Denny is gone from view.

I always share this dream when I run the Bereavement Group Meeting with Sister Margaret at St. Catharine’s and what I have learned in sharing it is how much it resonates with so many others who have suffered a loss.  Grief is life changing in so many ways and it requires maybe the hardest internal work you’ll ever go through.  Even if you are fortunate enough to work through each of the 5 Stages of anger, denial, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, the grief really never goes away.  Grief expert David Kessler believes there is a 6^th stage of grief which he calls “finding the meaning in your loss”.  That concept really resonates with me and is probably why I became so involved in Coaching and Bereavement Ministry a few years ago because I truly believe that you can find meaning in any loss you experience in your life and not just the loss of a loved one like Dennis.  I think all of us have grieved lots of different losses during COVID, not just the more than 560,000 souls we’ve lost. It’s not always easy to see the meaning of your loss at first glance but if you look long and hard enough, you can see it, find it, feel it, and move forward.  That’s not to say that you will ever get over the loss, but I believe that you can move through and beyond the loss and find that “meaning” that Kessler speaks so eloquently about.

Which leads me to where I am on my grieving process for Dennis.  Maybe because of COVID and now being a grandfather of two beautiful grandchildren who I hope to spend more time with in the months ahead, I’ve had the time to reflect on my Spiritual Compass and that clock called Mother Time that seems to be ticking faster than it ever has before.  The clock reminds me of my innate vulnerability, my mortality, and where I currently stand in the Lord’s eye with respect to my salvation.  It reminds me that I still have lots to do it but less time to complete the mission and my body is breaking down more frequently so I may not be able to complete all of the things I feel I am being driven by the Lord to do at this moment in my earthly journey.  

A New Grief That Has Surfaced in the 49th Year Since Dennis’s Passing

And then there’s this new phase of grief that I’ve recently entered into and it’s one that I didn’t see coming in this 49^th year since Dennis passed.  You see, I am now grieving the loss of Denny for the life I always wanted to share with him but now painfully acknowledge that I can never have with him. All of my major life moments since that horrible day he passed on April 20, 1972 and that I will never be able to share with him has hit me in my forehead pretty hard this year: He never got to see me play basketball again for my senior year of high school — Dennis and Dad were my biggest cheerleaders and I can still see both of them sitting in the stands cheering me on; He would never get to come and visit me in college and I would never get to visit him at Saint Joseph’s;  He would never get to meet the love of my life Jean and she and him would never become the great friends I had always wanted them to be; He would never get to be my best man at my wedding and I would never get to be his best man at his wedding;  He would never get to be the best Uncle to my three kids and I would never get an opportunity to be the best Uncle for his kids;  We would never get to live close to each other and get together for weekends and family celebrations like Baptisms, Holy Communions, Confirmations, Weddings, Birthday parties, Graduations; We would never be able to take our families to Mets games together just as he and I used to do as kids taking the bus and subway to Shea Stadium;  We would never get to vacation together with our families at the Jersey Shore just like I had been able to do with him and Jimmy Blanchfield as a kid growing up;  We would never get to help each other out on all the home improvement projects we used to engage in as kids like painting the house, wallpapering with Mom, and doing the yardwork with Dad;  And, we would never get the chance to say goodbye to Mom and Dad together with Cathy, Matty, and Mary Claire; All of those hoped for things in my life that I hoped to do with my big brother Dennis are the new losses I became acutely aware of and that I still must grieve 49 years later. And, it still really hurts to know that my big brother and my best friend is still not here with me and never will be in this life.

And that’s where the faith journey comes in.  You see I believe that unlike my bad dream that always ends the same way these past 49 years, I will see Denny again when I cross my own finish line.  He will be waiting for me like I have been waiting for him here on earth.  He will always be the best big brother I could ever have and the best friend I could ever have.  I know that I will see him again and in that moment all of my grief will disappear and we will be together again playing basketball in our new backyard called heaven.