My cousin David Bud Bernard passed away last week. The last time I saw him, he hugged me tight and thanked me for honoring his father. I hope he feels the same way about my words for him. We’ll miss you, Bud, and I hope there are 3-on-3 tournaments wherever you are. ********** With the loss of Bud, the landscapes of all our lives have been permanently rearranged. We can never restore them to what they used to be but we can use the memories we shared to paint the skies of our altered worlds. In a life where death is an assured fact, grief has been cast in a strange role. We treat it as something were supposed to get through, past or over. If youve ever lost someone close to you, you know that doesnt really happen. We never really get over it. Were supposed to believe that theres a bigger plan, some grand scheme were not privy to that will someday help this all make sense. I hope thats true. I hope theres somewhere else we go, somewhere where we can sit and look back at this life and have an understanding of why we had to go through so much pain and suffering. I hope theres a calmness, an understanding, some sort of suddenly beautiful clarity. I hope theres a light that shines on each person we lose when they get up there. I hope that light shines bright enough to give them all the answers we dont get in this world. I hope that light makes them feel safe and warm, I hope it feels like home. I hope Bud is bathed in it at this moment, finally free of all his pain, his worries and regrets. When someone passes, especially when theyre so young, we have a tendency to romanticize their life. We downplay their struggles, whitewashing their hard times while shining up their altruistic moments and touting their good sides. We dont need to do that with Bud. We dont need to minimize his battles because those battles made him the man he was. Each struggle he fought and every demon he battled made David the man he was - a fighter, a father, a friend. He supported us all through our own twists, turns and surprises. So many will celebrate his life because he accepted us all for who we are and helped us pick up the pieces when we fell apart, probably more than once. We dont need to make sure the pretty moments are shined to perfection in an attempt to make him look better because its unnecessary. Bud shined on his own through his love for his family and friends. So today, I encourage everyone to remember the full picture of who he was, ups and downs. Remember the complete picture. Nobody is made all good moments or all bad, no one is infallible and no one is comprised only of their errors. Were all a little bit of both inside. Light and dark. Hot and cold. Saint and sinner. In the Bernard family, we have known strong men. Men that are loyal to the ones they loved, strong when we needed them to be and ready with a joke when it was time to break the tension. They are fiercely loyal to their family and understand that family doesnt end with blood. Weve been blessed with these men and Buds dad, my Uncle Tom - everyones Uncle Tom - was among the best. David idolized his father and lived each day trying to live up to the standard that Uncle Tom set, to personify the lessons and carry on the legacy. To all who knew him, we know Bud attained those very same traits he admired so much, even if Bud wasn’t able to see that himself. I know father and son are somewhere right now looking down on all of us, sharing that same sparkle in their eyes when they laugh those laughs that built from somewhere deep inside. The one thing they shared that was bigger than anything else was their overwhelming and complete love for their children. To Davids kids, know that your dad lived and breathed for you. He loved you more than anything on this earth and I hope you continue to feel that love from him and take comfort in knowing that nothing made him as proud as you all did. To his siblings, I lost my brother three years ago and while that by no means makes me an expert on anything, I can say with complete honesty that Ive been where you are now and I know how you feel. I dont have any advice or the hubris to believe Im qualified to disperse any wisdom worth hearing. Instead, through this all, I offer encouragement. To Margene - you wear your heart on your sleeve and that means sometimes people see you bleed. Thats ok. Thats alright. Through this, I encourage you to harness the good emotions and push away the bad as best you can. We could all live with guilt and regrets, justified or not. Dont let those take over. Hang on to those good feelings that stem from the memories of the love and friendship you shared with your little brother and use them as a positive force in your own life. Your brother would want that much. To Jodie - Our pillar of strength that never seems to falter. I never knew that I could get sick of hearing youre so strong until I was ready to scream at the next person who said it to me. Sometimes the strong ones are the strong ones because they have no other choice. Theyre the ones that have to hold it together so everyone else can fall apart. Through this, I encourage you to break down, to grieve, to cry, to scream at the sky if you want. Its not weakness but strength that allows us to see that its ok if we dont have it all together all the time. Lean on your family the way youve always let them lean on you. Kick, scream, cry, curse the sun. Whatever helps. Allow yourself the indulgence of grief. To Aunt Sue - There are no words in the universe to string together that could ever make sense of what youve been through in these last twelve months. Even the broadest of shoulders can only bear so much weight. To put it simply, its unfair. Its wrong. Its cruel. No one should be subjected to that much pain and loss over the course of a lifetime, much less in such a short time. Through this, I encourage you to accept the support thats offered. Youll get a thousand messages and a hundred calls all saying if you need anything, just ask. Ask. Allow it. Burrow within that system of support. When you dont want to get out of bed for days at a time, take people up on the offers to clean the house or cook you dinner or to sit outside your bedroom door until youre ready to reemerge. When those same four walls feel like a prison, accept that offer to have you over for the evening or to meet for lunch. Go through the old photo albums when you want and put them away when you need to think of something else, of anything else. Whether you want to scream or not mutter a word, whether you want to push the world away or pull everyone as close as possible, whether you want to pray to God or curse his choices - do it. You have every right to do and feel all those things. To Jesse, Johnny and every person that knew and loved Bud, I encourage you to smile. Smile. Cry. Laugh. Remember. Share. Listen to the songs that remind you of that one time. We all have a thousand instances of that one time to remember, to cherish, to look back upon with a smile and maybe a tear or two. Pull out those old pictures of the high school days or any of the hundreds of Gus Macker tournaments. Burn into your memory all those arguments you had with Bud over why the Detroit Lions suck so bad every year or how Verlander is paid way too much or whatever other sports-related discussion Bud loved to have. When you reach for the phone to text him about the outcome of some game or talk trash about some UFC fight before you catch yourself and realize you can’t do that anymore, send up a thought or a prayer his way. When you’re overcome with grief at some unexpected moment, count yourself lucky. It seems illogical but that’s what we all are – lucky. Lucky to have known Bud, known his generosity, his humor, his dedication, his loyalty. Lucky to have had a relationship worthy of grief and mourning. Lucky to have loved someone in such a way that their absence in your life will always leave a hole that can’t be filled back in. Not everyone gets that. Some go through life without those sorts of bonds. So while we curse and cry and ask God why, we need to also be thankful to have had someone worth loving who loved us in return. It’s ok to feel sad and overwhelmed by loss when a candle burns out and a story ends. Endings are rarely happy but moments along the way are. Hold on to those. We’ve all said about Tom, Chuck, Steve, Jim and any of the others that we lost, that we’re not sure they realized how loved they were when they were here. Let’s use their lives and honor their memories by making sure those that are still here know how much we love them, that we miss them when they’re away, that they crossed our minds that day. Never miss an opportunity to tell someone you love them. Friends, family, whoever. Make sure they know what they mean to you. The opportunity to tell them may be lost before we know it. “Funny how the good ones go too soon but the good Lord knows the reasons why, I guess. Sometimes the greater plan is kinda hard to understand. Right now it dont make sense, I cant make it all make sense…”
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 02:35:26 +0000
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