Billy's Silly Blog

A Brother

Life is an aggregate of one's experiences, given the limitation of one's genes. I had the experience of being older brother to one James Alan McLeish, who was born when I was almost 21 and died at the age of 33 of Cystic Fibrosis. CF is an uncomfortable disease, one that eventually rots the lungs, smothering the sufferer. I had a family of my own to bring up, was tending to my own career and education, so did not observe him keenly until the last few years of his life. Up until then, he seemed to me a "nice kid". He staved off the disease with massive doses of exercise and careful attention to therapy. He could play badminton with an oxygen tank on his back and BEAT me. He pedalled a bicycle from Vancouver to Ottawa in support of CUSO and its overseas projects. He knew that "to live is to strive" and practiced it. He married a wonderful girl who enjoyed and supported him for 6 years despite the death sentence the disease cast on him.

But I discovered in his last few years that he was uncanny, unusual. He had SPIRIT! It might have been his faith.. he was plugged in to something upstairs, and belonged to and was supported by Christian churches all his life. My teenaged daughters (with their typical teenaged problems) would visit "Jamie" in the hospital and come out refreshed of spirit.. visiting Jamie was fun. He could love, he could laugh, he could be a friend. Despite living on a small government allowance, he was rich of spirit. Even when close to death, he seemed healthier than the rest of us. He left us almost 10 years ago! I don't think I was "shattered" by his departure as much as I was astonished at his character, and still marvel at it.

He wrote a poem at a time when he was relatively well.. I have always responded primarily to "silliness" and this one wasn't silly, so it didn't really register with me then. As I mature, it now seems as uncanny as he did... I heard that 8 years after his death they were still reading this poem at Cystic Fibrosis Remembrance services they hold every year in Toronto. You perhaps can decide whether it was "faith" or genes who created this person by reading his words:

Free to See the Stars
James Alan McLeish

As Life's dark night comes closer still
the glow of day, beyond a hill
the sunset of my days fulfilled
I warm within its glow

It is a brightly coloured sky
so tasty peach and red that I
am thankful to have been alive
to be the me I am

but lo I turn the other way
and look to darkness, night from day
from here where I would love to stay
to a path I have not tread

where once I felt serenity
my mind is playing tricks on me
to know my heart, not easily
my doubts have sway instead

but only for a moment, lo
comes gallant hope to soothe the blow
to tell me what I ought to know
a sorry body strains to hear

But look upon the sun again
and know the warmth I have within
the touch of one who came to men
has come for me today

The hand I've known for many years
is now the hand that dries the tears
and though the night won't do arrears
I'm free to see the stars.

Maybe some day I'll understand completely what he was saying..the more times I read it the deeper and more meaningful it seems. But maybe that is the definition of GOOD poetry or art.. the more often you look at it, the BETTER it looks. Just a minute and I'll read it again......

posted by bill @ 12:54 PM