afterburner

Thirteen years ago today, my brother died by suicide. It has been a long process to the understanding of the event that I have today, but in many ways it's hard to comprehend how much time has passed. My life now bears little similarity to then, in terms of the people I know, the place I live, the stage of life I'm living. None of the people I will see today has ever met my brother, and it's likely that I won't talk to anyone who knew him. I'm married now, living 2,000 miles across the country, and even the season is different in this part of the world at this time of year (i.e., there is no sign of ice on the ground and flowers are blooming in my front yard). It's a different world.

I called up my mom to share some love, and of course we reminisced and shared some stories and reflections, which demonstrates more than anything else how far we've each come in moving forward: at the time, we could not have had a discussion regarding "why" and I most assuredly could not have told her that I don't disapprove of his taking his own life. Today I can express quite freely my opinion that every person should have control over his or her life, to the point of making a decision to end it. This is not a validation of suicide per se, but rather a recognition of freedom of choice. Only purely selfish motives are involved in determining that another person must continue a life that he or she wishes unequivocally to end, and those are not valid motives. But beyond the rest of our conversation and its indications, the most positive aspect of our chat was The Afterburner.

Afterburner was a flight sim game in the 1980s -- Google tells me that it was actually an arcade game that was later released for various consoles -- but in our house it referred to a laptop-sized console with a joystick. M got it for Christmas one year and played it obsessively. There's a picture of him sprawled out in the hallway on Christmas completely immersed. That hunk of plastic accompanied us on every road trip we took -- and there were quite a few -- despite its terribly awkward dimensions and the constant reminders to put the damn thing on mute because, oh, my god, the sounds it made were soooo annoying, especially with four of us crammed into the car for hours on end. I have never been into video games but I got fairly handy with the thing, too. Eventually he grew out of it, and I have no idea what happened to it. It's more than likely stashed somewhere in my parents' house to this day.

The day we went to the crematorium, it was just the three of us: me, my mom and dad. The hearse had already delivered the casket and it was awaiting our arrival on the roller belt to the crematory oven. We just kind of stood around awkwardly while they started up the super-industrial machinery and turned on the gas. After the desperate prettiness of church flowers and polished funeral home decor, a crematorium is strikingly sterile and unapologetically harsh. After the casket is delivered into the oven, the door was shut and there was nothing more to see, but some odd sense of unfinished witness-bearing persevered and we didn't seem able to leave. The crematory process lasts for hours, and the cremains cool afterward before being removed and proceeding to their eventual "resting place" or whatever you want to call it; there's really no point in hanging out. I don't remember who noticed it, but the control panel contained an Afterburner indicator light, and we all seized upon it. Afterburner! Potentially the most morbid indicator light of the crematory oven, and it was our release. The Afterburner phase marked the end of our responsibility, because it was familiar and recognizable and therefore comforting. My mom reflected that it might be really painful for some people, but for us it has positive connotations, all wrapped up in a long-ago Christmas that somehow summarizes a person we all loved. We must be really fucked up people. I just love that we all saw it the same way.