It’s just weird.
There’s supposed to be someone at the other end of these thoughts, but now they just end in nothing.
It’s like a wire has come loose, is supposed to be plugged in, connected somewhere for the electricity to flow. Instead, it’s just a spark and pop and a…fzzzzt.
404 – Page Not Found.
We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed.
In my head there are the old memories, the thoughts that finish, that have a beginning and an end. But now there are these new thoughts that have no place to land. No place to grab hold, to connect.
I think of something I want to share or have an experience I want to relate, and my brain says I’ll just text him and let him know. I should forward him that link. Share that cool YouTube video I stumbled across.
Except that I won’t. I can’t. Not anymore.
Nothing at the end of that line.
404 Error – Page Not Found. The webpage you are looking for appears to be missing.
In my head he’s still there, the same as he always was. Same smile, same laugh, same thoughtful look with his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth as he ruminated over that latest New York Times crossword puzzle or brain teaser. Maybe he’s painstakingly painting details on the cockpit of a model airplane or looking down his nose through his reading glasses at the new banana bread recipe he wants to try. He’s still there, still as vibrant, and real and THERE as I’ve always remembered him.
Except that he’s not. Not there.
Not anymore.
My thoughts feel like bare wires sticking out of a hole in the sheet rock. Red, black, white wires, the insulation cut back, copper gleaming dully underneath. There’s supposed to be a switch or a light fixture or a plug-in or SOMETHING there to connect them to, to crimp onto, a place for that mental energy to flow to and be received.
But there isn’t. The fixtures have all be ripped out. Big gaping holes in my life where those thoughts and feelings are supposed to connect. It’s like bad renters left and took everything with them, right down to the lights, the furniture, the cabinets…everything.
We’re sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
It still just doesn’t seem real. He was there, damnit, right THERE. And now he isn’t. He was always such a permanent presence in my life, sometimes close, sometimes far away, but always at least THERE, somewhere; 56 years of being my little brother, of always just being a phone call or a text away.
How can he not be there? How can he not be at the end of that wire? At the other end of that phone? On the other end of that text? How can he just not be there anymore?
Part of me says that it’s just another piece of this life we live. People are born, they live, they die. It happens to all of us sooner or later. It’s natural; a simple inevitability we’ll all have to face one day, and so it shouldn’t be that hard to accept, deal with, and move on.
And then there is the other, bigger part of me that realizes, no, this isn’t just a simple fact of life — this is more like losing your arm at the elbow or having your leg blown off at the knee.
It fucking hurts.
Something has been torn from your life and left a big, deep wound. And it’s going to take a good, long while to heal, and yeah, it’s gonna hurt the whole. damn. time.
Maybe a little less, and a little less as time goes on, but even then, there will be those times where you feel that phantom pain and just SWEAR that the leg is still down there, as good as ever.
You can FEEL it, like nothing has changed.
Until you try to put your weight on it. Until you look in the mirror and have to face the simple truth that, yeah, things have changed…and they are never going to be like they were again.
You can FEEL like nothing has changed.
Until you pick up your phone to text and remember that he’s not at the other end to read it. Not anymore. There’s just a big ol’ hole in the world where Andy Berven used to be.
We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please check the number and try again.
Although if I can take comfort in knowing that he is in Heaven, that he and Jesus are having a jam session with Andy on the drums, Jesus on the bass, Anne on vocals, and my dad playing the trumpet, rocking some sweet up-tempo jazz, or maybe some big band favorites…
…the here and the now still just seems a little thinner, a little dimmer, and a little bit less of everything else from knowing that he’s gone on ahead without us.
I guess the best we can do is carry on, little by little, day by day, until the laughter we hold in our memories softens and rounds and smooths the edges of the hurt enough that we can, finally, set it gently aside and instead hold on to the glimmering, golden moments of love, happiness and joy we have stored in our hearts of all the times Andy made us laugh and smile.
At the tone, please record your message:
“Save me a place, little brother. I plan to be a while yet, but I’ll be along one day to join in the band. And while maybe I can’t sing all that well or play the sax, man I’ll sure hammer that tambourine or the cowbell into shape like nobody’s business. Until then, bro. Until then.”
Andrew Scott Berven
11/14/67 – 10/23/23
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds,—and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air ….
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor ever eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
JOHN GILLESPIE MAGEE JR.
