Hey crater-maker, shot-taker, boundary-breaker. Hey you with the cosmic smile and the nuclear aura.
Today you shook my world with the news of your passing. When the awful reality filled the air like thick, black smoke from fresh red oak wood - she’s gone - I felt the groaning building shake with the weight of your loss. And I can’t accept that it was the drugs that took you so unexpectedly while you dreamt. Instead, I’ll imagine that it was those angels who have long been jealous of your prismatic light. It must have been them that pulled you through the clouds to ask you, “how’d you do it?” How did you shine so effortlessly in a world full of gargoyles?
It was because your skin was made of thick shards of broken glass, wasn’t it? Imperfect, glittering pieces collected from a broken heart, broken mind, fighter’s soul.
We weren’t always best friends, you and I, but once we were. Remember? When we barefoot walked in the grass behind your house because we wanted to feel close to the molten core of Mother Earth and close to each other. We were.
Forest nymph made up of autumn leaves, ground cinnamon, and chamomile. Where did you go?
Here, there’s repressed reconciliation aching in my dried up bones. Can I bury them, there, with your body and these olive leaves?
Some people feel this: Sorry. It’s also something we become. In thinking of the We that used to be, sorry is who I am.
Sorry for letting us fall away and apart
Sorry for meeting you in the hallways and at the gym with only awkward waves and stiff smiles
Sorry for only admiring you and loving you in my mind when I should have done it with my arms and my voice
Sorry for not being brave.
Can you send the wind to tell me it’s okay? Can you send the sunshine to tell me you’re alive?
Can you fill the sky with clouds to show me that you’re home?
If you promise to show me, I promise to look.
So, I’ll see you, okay?
In that warrior-spirited Joan of Arc painting
In the gooey summer asphalt of Healey Blvd
In the padded toes of adult-sized onesies
In snakes and sugar gliders and hedgehogs and toads
In the pink cheeks of sunburnt kids trailing life and energy and adventure
And in the wind, and the sun, and the clouds of this planet to which you no longer belong.
I’ll never stop seeing you.
-Brittney Bills
May 2018
Precious memories
Precious memories of Brooke our angel above
Shared by family and friends bring sweet tears
Fill us with gratitude, joy and Christ's perfect love Fond remembrances our broken hearts they cheer
Many have asked, how can we support and assist?
Facebook message, email or write fond recollections
Ponder on Brooke, her mortal journey, quietly reminisce
Share you memories, thoughts, feelings and affections
For with sharing about our angelic Brooke and her life
Our gratitude for 23 years with her burns warm and bright
Healing, comforting, tempering unbearable pain and strife
Through Christ's perfect grace, she's full of glorious light
We LOVE you Brooke - come visit often all those who need you more than ever now that you're a ministering angel, fly free my darling
-Love daddy
Brett Folkman
July 5th 2018
Missing Brooke
Mental anguish, emotional pain, neurons firing rapidly, consuming the brain, dendrite trees smoldering then bursting in flame, hot searing nerves, shoot down below, next the heart begins to glow, red hot lava, spewing forth, courses through your veins, red and blue color vanishes, only violet remains, the hottest visible spectrum of light, symbolic of the consuming emotional fire within, but emotional pain, charging down the same neural pathways of mortal frame, overflows its bounds into physical scorching pain, every fiber, every cell, every atom, your individual protons, electrons and neutrons further into your quarks and gluons, the most excruciating tortuous sensations reign, gluons dissolve, quarks fly apart, protons and neutrons explode at the subatomic level, your atoms cease to exist, cells are no more, complete dissolution of substance scattered to the universe in a burst of unimaginable pain and anguish, no physical structure can contain, red hypergiant stars cease to give their light, black holes explode, their event horizon compromised, expanding ever outward pain and anguish consume and destroy, the universe crumbles, the multiverse vanishes, all matter simultaneously ceases to exist, for no vessel can carry the grieving sorrow of a mother and father’s anguish for their departed daughter.
Daddy misses you Brooke – I know you’re now able to fly freely among the red giants, white and blue dwarfs, neutron and sequence stars, zipping through worm holes, black stars, parallel planes in the mortal and spiritual realms, faster than the speed of light you can go, here and there in a blink of an eye, are you bound by time?, can you simultaneously be in two places at once in our physical world with your spirit?, travel back in time?, as some prophets have said, my tiny tiny mortal brain can’t even comprehend your capabilities and capacity, I know you’re doing WONDERFUL, I feel your warm smile, I sense your flowing red hair, your penetrating green eyes bore into my being, your charitable heart warms my saddened soul, your gentle ethereal caress wipes away my tears, your vibrant glowing spirit, calms all my fears, gluons bring back together my quarks, reassembling my protons and neutrons, atoms reappear, cells vibrate with life, fibers nit back together, molten liquid fire cools in my veins, red and blue color returns, heart slows to normal, nerves sing with delight, dendrite trees doused in love, my soul will be alright. I love you Brooke!!
Brett Folkman
June 27th 2018
Sitting with Grief
Long late night flight, time to think and grieve, time slows and I feel all alone, isolated in my pain, tears silently emerge, coursing down my crimson cheeks, no bother, let the sorrow drain from my soul, just sit with your grief, embrace it, that’s what they say, but how do you just sit when your heart has been ripped wide open, how do you just sit with your grief when hot searing shafts of pain relentlessly stab at what’s left of your heart, how do you just sit when grief feels like a consuming fire burning you to ashes, how do you just sit with grief when you ache so deep to just hold your daughter again, to feel her warmth, to feel the pulsing of her perfect beating heart, to have her warm sweet breath gently caress your neck as you hold her tight, as you whisper, I love you sweet Brooke, daddy loves his little angel, to feel the depth and grandeur of her spirit emanating from her flesh, she feels so safe in my arms, she whispers back, I love you daddy, she doesn’t pull away, I rock gently back and forth with her in my embrace, just feeling the love engulf my sweet Brooke and I, this was my daily ritual with my Brooke, our long hugs, I’d whisper sweet things into her ear, she’d reciprocate, I’d whisper of God’s love, of Christ’s love, she’d say, I know daddy, thank you daddy for this and that, mostly trivial things of the day, a new toy for Indie, gas for her car, dinner for she and Guich, Brooke was so grateful for everything, when we’d hug, she’d always apologize for the smallest of things that she thought might annoy me, sorry daddy, I’d laugh and say no worries my angel, I’m not annoyed at all, Brooke is so tender hearted, she never wanted to hurt Sandy or I, especially Sandy, it always pained her to see her mommy suffer, Brooke’s empathy for suffering was so deep, because she suffered so deeply, but she’s suffering no more, Christ’s perfect atonement Brooke new intimately, she relied on her Savior to carry her in this life, Christ literally carried her through unwanted mental health challenges, horrific abuse, significant injustice, numbing addiction, her mortal journey took her through the valley of death and beyond many times, but she never lost sight of her redeemer, and now, she’s redeemed, now I need to learn from my angel Brooke, I need to look to my Savior to carry me through my grief and pain, she blazed the path, she showed me the way to rely on Christ to carry me through this mortal journey, a blink of an eye in eternity, I feel my Brooke guiding and comforting me now, my tears now dry, sweet memories of Brooke fill my soul, I reach towards my Savior and he encircles me about in the arms of his love, I surrender my grief and pain to him, I can’t comprehend it, but he compassionately sooths my aching soul, he brings solace to my broken heart, I know him, he’s no stranger, I welcome his healing embrace, he whispers into my ear, I love you, I feel my pain slip silently away, I feel him rocking me back and forth, I feel so safe in his embrace, I thank my Savior for his atoning sacrifice, for redeeming me from sin, for releasing my Brooke from her mortal suffering and pain, for knowing that his eternal sacrifice made possible that I’ll be with my Brooke again, for revealing her mortal journey was complete, tears silently run free, coursing down my crimson face, no longer alone, my Savior comforts me, the sorrow now drained from my soul, the new tears fill my soul with the peace that passeth all understanding, Christ’s perfect grace, peace and joy consume me, gratitude overflows it’s bounds, gratitude for my sweet angel wife, Sandy, gratitude for being sealed to her for time and all eternity in God’s holy temple, for being blessed with four lovely, amazing, talented daughters, for my new sons and grandson, for a sure knowledge that this mortal life is just a dot in our eternal existence, I know my Brooke lives on, I feel her spirit comforting me, I’m humbled, I’m in awe, I will forever praise my Heavenly Father and Mother and their perfect Son, Jesus Christ – I long to keep this feeling!! Yet I know that’s not how mortality works, so I’ll treasure this sweet experience and remember it often, they say to just sit with your grief, to embrace it, and you know what, they’re right, for that’s when God can work a miracle in your soul! So the grief cycle continues, pain, suffering, comfort, healing, joy, repeat – a microcosm of mortality.
