Oh very young what will leave us this time...

...you're only dancing on this earth for a short while. ~ Cat Stevens

It's nearly a year since my brother, Steve Crohn, completed suicide. I know now this is the correct term when someone attempts and accomplishes their own death. And the news of Robin Williams' suicide has brought to the fore many of the feelings I had in August 2013. Why? Where? When? 

Why? Why? Why?

The experts and the talking heads and the never-ending news feeds tell us the easy answer is unmitigated depression/mental illness accompanied by substance abuse. Both were factors in my brother's and Williams' deaths. But is that all there is?

Since each one of us is unlike another (as Sesame Street taught us),we uniquely adapt to the challenges of our own lives. As I sit here and listen to a Cat Stevens collection of songs I'm reminded of when I was a teenager in the 1970's and listened intently to each of the composer and singer's words as if they held all the truths I would ever need to know. I may have been a little Hippie high at times but, often enough, I still allow myself to think this is true. And I listen again and again and again.

Oh baby. baby it's a wild world. It's hard to get by just upon a smile. 

Circumstances change, people change religions and names, we morph and mold ourselves into our own Morks and Mindys - creatures from our own minds and worlds. Sensitive souls build armor for protection. Confident personalities mask pain in a myriad of ways. The truth of it is, however, that we all experience suffering. It's what we do with it that makes all the difference.

I am in a lot of emotional pain today; grieving fully and wholly for my brother and making comparisons between him and Robin Williams. I don't know how I will feel on the 'angelversary' of my brother's death on August 24th, or on my 54th birthday two days later on August 26th, or on what would have been my brother's 67th birthday on September 5th. I'm just letting the feelings come.

Please allow yourself to do the same no matter what your troubles are today.

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time

You're only dancin' on this earth for a short while

And though your dreams may toss and turn you now

They will vanish away like your dads best jeans

Denim blue, faded up to the sky

And though you want them to last forever

You know they never will

(you know they never will)

And the patches make the goodbye harder still.

Oh very young what will you leave us this time

There'll never be a better chance to change your mind

And if you want this world to see a better day

Will you carry the words of love with you

Will you ride the great white bird into heaven

And though you want to last forever

You know you never will

(you know you never will)

And the goodbye makes the journey harder still.

Will you carry the words of love with you

Will you ride, oh, oooh

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time

You're only dancin' on this earth for a short while

Oh very young, what will you leave us this time