In memory and celebration, Brian Sercus

Brian, I was honored to know you so briefly at such an important time in our lives' journey. You changed me forever and I will never forget you, never stop thinking of you, never forget what you told me.


I am drawn to stay up all night writing a letter to Brian, my friend, my brief friend, who I knew not as well as those who mourn him properly. I am mixed with emotions. I wonder how much of my current emotional state is delayed emotions from the last 18 months that I spent either struggling to live or struggling to prove that I was "living" - and now that I am clearly doing both - many emotions are releasing.


I wonder what is delayed and what is real. 


Today, a new transplant patient's mother writes to me, a woman I do not know, about her son who I do not know, [he writes this,]:


>> Swollen
>> Tired
>> No appetite
>> Sad
>> Trying to process the death of the donor
>> Bruised
>> Stomach aches
>> Dealing with a lifetime of "sick kid mentality"
>> Not sleeping well
>> Blood clots in both arms
>> Weak


And I wonder about one word: sad. I wonder how patients ever really recover from the sadness they feel preparing for either transplant or death, how patients really are unable to share the sadness they feel with the world because they are meant to be so grateful and in this basic world that thinks of 1 dimensional emotions: grateful is happy - I wonder how anyone gets through it, and I wonder how I get through it. 

I discovered a poem tonight that I wrote before my transplant when I was quite ill. I must have been somewhat altered when I wrote it, as I never followd up and edited it, or did anytihng with it at all. It was called My Body Remembers. Here it is in, it's roughest form. 


This is what I wrote:

My body remembers that I am a dancer, an actress, a teacher, a climber of trees. 

My arms remember that I hug soft and kind, that I bow to the moon, that I reach for my dreams.

My body remembers that I ...

My body remembers that I am a dancer, an actress, a teacher, a singer, a climber of trees.

My body remembers that I am a shouter, a runner, a lover, a woman, a beauty, a beautiful catch. My body remembers that I am strong, and a fighter, that I'm rugged though tiny.

That I like to win.

I will be okay after my transplant, because though I am tired now, my body remembers a time when I wasn't.

My body remembers that I am a dancer, a swimmer

an actress

a singer.

My body remembers every moment when I felt free.

Walking home from school most days of 6th grade, my body learned to go one step at a time to keep up with the others.

Swimming lap after lap after lap on the swim team, and sometimes I won, my body learned to keep pull pull pulling the water behind you to get to the front.

Training my diaphragm to breath deep, deep, deep and strong and push big air out of my small small lungs and have the loudest voice, proudest voice of most young actors, my body learned to speak up.

My body remembers to walk proudly, to pull forward, to breathe deep.

My body remembers that my legs are always strong even though my heart is sometimes weak.

Backstage, gulping down water in the wings because I sweat out too much out on the stage, my body remembers that I am a performer who thirsts to get back onstage.

Standing on my tip toes for minutes and minutes and minutes in a dancing pose for a movement exercise because my body remembers that I was a teeny tiny ballerina, a movement instructor, an image-theatre maker.

***

I only share this with you to illuminate some of my thought, some of the basic thoughts I was having at that time to try to remember my identity.


In the celebration of Brian, the beauty of his story, is that he NEVER forgot his. 

bp