D-Day Minus One

It is D-Day minus one. D, in this usage referring to departure. Tomorrow at or around 0900 my brother and I will hitch a box trailer to his Jeep and point it South. Destination (D-place?) is 1,200 miles away in a small town on the Pacific Ocean named for the Angels. The place I was born almost 67 years ago, on what I can assume was a hot and muggy day on the final day of August. Of course, as the trite adage suggests that was then and this is now. 

It is a minor matter for me, taking three days off to drive him down and fly back, but an altogether different set of circumstances for him. He is leaving a failed marriage and a sixteen year-old son here in the attempt to find himself there. This is the culmination of five years of not-so-gradual decline of anything close to functional. He has suffered a thousand deaths as his relationships fell deeper into a bottomless pit of hopelessness. As we have seen so many times, he, she, they tried to cling to anything solid enough to support this fait accompli, he ultimately seeing salvation through letting go and taking the frightening risk of the independent free fall. That moment of change is at hand. A dark chapter ends and with all the courage and hope his is capable of bringing, a new one begins. 

I am 100% behind him on this. Having been there once myself I know how hard it is to pull the trigger on such a major decision. Ironically, the day that I chose to end my marriage, business and location, and fly to the place I felt was a better fit for me (here) was the monumental day that Mt St Helens blew her top. May 18, 1980 for the historians among you, almost four decades ago. I am fond of saying that it was an explosive start to my new life. 

I wish there was more that I could do. I feel for the guy, and not simply because he is my brother and we have been through countless battles, skirmishes and wars together - even winning a few - but because what he really needs right now is the unsolicited support of a friend. Someone who will drop everything, answer his call for help and provide some security for his back-side. 

What he doesn’t need is a critic, an insensitive voice citing his shortcomings, mistakes and poor choices instead of patiently offering a sympathetic ear. I will try my best. Despite my opinion that he, as we, are all ultimately responsible for our individual measure of happiness and further that we are always just one decision away from it. The zen of this fails however if the professional diagnosis indicates clinical depression or any number of other equally paralyzing neurosis. Telling the afflicted manic-depressive person to ‘just be happy’ is like suggesting that a drunk just stay sober. 

It will be an interesting trip. I have been up and down I-5 so many times that I know every rest stop, gas station and greasy spoon from Tacoma to Thousand Oaks by heart. I have flown it, rode it in cars, trucks, buses and trains. I even did it on my bike, twice. 

As many times and as many miles as I have traveled along this famous North-South route, this one just might be the most explosive.