They Call It Life

It's been a very rough few days, to understate the matter. And it's had me thinking a lot.

When any sort of tragedy hits, be it minor or major, you discover very quickly who your friends are. They're the ones who contact you, not just once, but a few times over the course of days, to see how you're doing. For everyone who did that with me, whether it was via phone call, text, email, or Facebook, I give you my biggest and most heartfelt thanks. I cannot express my gratitude in this language or in any other.

My friend Corey Robinson told me, years ago before he passed, that "family need not be blood." Basically, you have two families in this life. The family you are born into/are raised with, and the family that you choose, that you create with your heart. Some of us are lucky enough to have the two overlap. I'm one of those. I was born into a pretty kick-ass family, and as I have grown "from a seed to a tree" as Shannon Hoon put it, that family has only expanded. I have more people that I would consider family now than I would ever have imagined possible back when I was an angry freshman in high school.

One of those people was Scotty. I feel like crap for taking more time to get to know him than the rest of my family did. What can I say, I tend to hold people at arm's length at first, and I was much worse back then. Seriously. Scotty was very much responsible for relieving me of much of my cynical attitude that everyone was either out to get me or was laughing at me behind my back, and that no one short of my immediate family actually liked me. I am not saying this in an attempt to garner any sort of sympathy or reassurance as to who likes me and who does not, so if you comment, please refrain from doing so. I am explaining something here.

Scotty had no patience with me taking my time to warm up to him. Any time I glanced at him, he grinned at me. He carried on conversations no matter how limited my responses were. Hell, he snuck up behind me one night and decided to rub my shoulders, which scared the bejeezus out of me and almost got him punched. And his efforts paid off. He cracked my shell and pretty soon he'd made himself a spot in my heart.

Scotty introduced me as his sister, my siblings as his siblings. He called my parents his parents too. Whether there was common DNA between us or not is irrelevant. He was my brother, and I loved him for everything he was, everything he stood for, and everything he hoped for, wished for, dreamed of. I love him as much as I do Travis, Jeni, Mom, Dad, and Diddy. When he told me he considered me his sister, I never thought twice about it.

I don't need a piece of paper to tell me what's written in the heart. I know what he told me, and how I felt. I know what he'd say on the phone or what he would text me, or what I would text him. And I know what he said to his friends about me, my sibs, and my folks.

That being said, I am honoring him in the way I live my life. I am honoring the principle of love that he lived out every day. I am blessed with some of the best friends in the world, and I've deleted the ones from my friend list who weren't really friends at all. I'm going to stop being passive in regards to waiting for things to happen, because after all, you never know what's going to happen. I'm going to go after what I want, and do what I need to do. I'm going to email people regarding job applications (including the people at the casino). I'm going to start wearing bright colors more often and wearing makeup whenever I leave the house, because those are things he brought up to me frequently. I'm going to sing more often, even though my voice is mediocre at best. I'm going to raise my boys to be accepting of people of all sorts, to determine who they associate with based on each individual's personality, rather than the other things kids tend to judge people on. Compassion instead of prejudice, love instead of fear. I'll teach them to dance like no one is watching, to greet the world with an open heart and open eyes, and to treat people the way they'd want to be treated themselves.

For the legacy of love, acceptance, and joy that he left me, I give thanks.

For the privilege of knowing him, I give thanks.

For the honor of being considered his sister, for being part of his heart family, I give thanks.

Dear Scotty,

So, I put your plate out tonight. According to my beliefs, you're traveling to everywhere you've ever been right now. I made cookies tonight, so I put two of them out for you, along with a little tin foil heart and the requisite tobacco.

It isn't getting any easier, but it isn't any harder either, if that makes any sense. I'm not sure. It's still fairly unreal to me, I guess. I made myself get dressed today. I needed a stamp so I could mail my state taxes, and Jeremy thought it would be good for me to get out of the house. I hadn't left since Saturday. Actually, I hadn't gotten dressed since Sunday. I was getting ready to throw on a huge tee shirt and a pair of sweats, but I stopped myself. I remembered I'd promised you I'd start trying to dress a little more girly for you. So I brushed my hair, put on some eye makeup, jeans (but ones that fit), and a v neck fitted shirt. I made an effort to smile at the clerk when I bought the stamp, and I let people go ahead of me at the four-way stops.

I don't know, kiddo. It's shitty, you know? I hope you met up with Matt and Corey - maybe you're schooling Corey at DDR or something while Matt laughs? Or maybe you and Matt are comparing your writing or drawing? Or maybe you've just got your back against a tree and are relaxing - God knows you never did enough of that.

I miss you so much. I keep clicking over to view my own profile on Facebook, because I know which of my statuses you commented on. I tweeted about you tonight to another artist, and I think I might go back on my meds for a little while. I want it to hurt that you're gone. I need it to hurt. But I've gotta take care of these kids too, and I know if anyone would understand that it's you.

I wish you could have seen Jonah dance. I know you would have enjoyed it, and maybe you would have taught him a couple different moves other than his current bounce up and down, spin in a circle, and shake his non-existent butt. Or maybe you just would have laughed.

I'm getting a tattoo for you. Or rather, I guess it's for me, but it's representative of you. You know, like my cook free or die tattoo is representative of me. Anyway, it's got rainbow stars in it. You'll like it.

I better get to bed now. I keep hoping I'll wake up and this will be a nightmare, but every day that hope gets a little fainter.

I love you,
Megan

Dear Scotty

Dear Scotty,

Today I posted the following as my Facebook status: "We lost a beautiful person yesterday, my brother Scott Dixon. In his honor, I would ask that you all do something to make the world more beautiful, the way he did everyday. Try to see something good in someone you can't stand. Refrain from using the words "gay, fag, homo," etc as derogatory terms or hate speech. Hug your dear ones, and tell them you love them. He would want that."

I've been trying to think of tributes to you. It still doesn't seem real to me on one level. On another level, it's too real. I know that you would want me to be happy and strong, and I swear I will try. It just isn't fair. I should have gotten to talk to you, to give you one more hug. I can still feel the way you always kept one arm around my shoulder and petted my head with your free hand every time I saw you.

I have shared so many of my favorite memories of you with Jeni, with Sierra, with Jeremy, with everyone I'm friends with on Facebook. It's a bittersweet thing, this sharing.

In your honor, I am making the following vows:

I will tell my loved ones that I love them more often.
I will do something every day to brighten this world you had to leave behind so soon.
I will tell my boys often about their uncle Scotty-love, why I always called you that, and how wonderful you were.
I'll do my best to start dressing more like a girl, since you always yelled at me about that.
I'll plant flowers for you, take more walks at dark, and every time I sing, whether a lullaby to Matthew and Jonah, or in the shower, or in the car, I'll think of you.
For very tear I shed when your face pops up in my mind, I'll try for a smile to match it.

I love you, kiddo, and I miss you so much.

Love,
Megan

My Scotty

 Scotty as a high school senior

 three of my sibs: (left to right) Trav, Scotty, and Jeni

 Travie and Scotty at Jeni's wedding

me and Scotty<3

To my brother Scotty

Dear Scotty,

I am alternating between shock, grief, and denial. Part of my brain keeps coughing up trite understatements like "he was too beautiful for this world" and "the brightest stars burn out the fastest." Another part keeps saying the doctors made a mistake, that there's no way this happened. And the rest of me just wants to kick and scream, punch holes through walls, set something on fire to watch it burn and hope the smoke carries my words to you, or an echo of your voice to my ears.

I had a dream last night that I was standing in your hospital room. You sat up and smiled at me and told me I'd been worrying over nothing. Were you telling me goodbye? I woke up, convinced of the dream's reality, only to get the voicemail notification that you were gone.

Scotty-love, I know you're watching me write this. I know you'd never cause anyone deliberate pain. I wonder if you know just how big the hole is that your loss has created. The edges are ragged and burnt, a wound beyond mending, beyond healing.

I remember camping on the beach with you. Drinking cheap wine coolers in my apartment in Mullet Lake, when you complimented the roses on my rug, directly addressing them, then curling up on the foot of my bed to sleep. I remember the hip-check dance we used to do when we fried chicken together at the Dam Site. I remember the night of candy and cheesecake after Eddie dumped me, the way you rushed offstage mid-performance to answer your phone when I called to tell you you had a new nephew. I remember how you choked up when we made you Jonah's godfather. I remember the night we snuck through Bay View in the dark, on foot, for the hell of it, the way we could never find your car when we walked out of WalMart after shopping. I remember the way you always glowed. I told everyone you were my sunshine, and it was true.

I was a fat, bitter, angry girl when I met you. You coaxed me out of that, convinced me to start dressing in something other than oversized tee shirts and baggy cargo pants, made me go shopping with you, refused to let me buy anything other than "girl clothes," and told me I was beautiful so many times I had no choice but to believe you. I could be in the foulest mood, or in the depths of the blackest depression, and the mere fact of your presence would make it a good day again.

Just by being you, you showed me and everyone else in your life the ideal of what a man should be. True, honest, faithful, loyal, an innate talent for seeing and bringing out the best in everyone. You had a trick of texting me at random, somehow sensing something in my life wasn't right. Usually the texts would read "I love you!!" but once, on a particularly rotten day, "I don't know if I've told you this, Meg, but you're one of the best sisters a guy could have. Much love."

You gave me so much, sweetie. Laughter, love, and the courage to be myself. You were as much my brother as if Mom had given birth to you. To hear you sing, to watch you dance was to experience pure joy, to feel my heart soar. 

I've been watching your YouTube channel all day, alternating it with "Light and Day" by the Polyphonic Spree, because that song - the feel of it, the joy in the music and the way it soars with ease - has never failed to remind me of you.

You were light and peace, happiness, the sun after the rain, the epitome of light and joy and spirit in its purest form. The world is a cruel, cold, dark and lonely place without you. You burned like a star, and I miss you, o my brother.

With love forever,
Megan

Rant

I don't believe you.

There is a creepy feeling in my gut that you lied. "Devil's advocate" is a story that just doesn't wash with me. And after 7 hours that's the best you could come up with?

If you'd just been honest, I would have forgiven and attempted to forget. I mean, everyone fucks up at least once, although in the course of this, I haven't made your mistake yet.

So for now, I watch. I wait. I try to decide what I will do, if anything.

If it happens again, I'm done. And while I may not be a rocket scientist, I am smart enough to find out if it does.

goddammit

screaming on the inside

details later