Original Guitar Hero, Unplugged

On His way backstage, God kicked the cord out of the wall. The amplifier fell silent, the aural void near to bursting the eardrums when my Big Bro passed away. The Stratocaster solo that was his life cut off, the guillotine falling and we were in shock, unaware that a sentence had been handed down.

Sentence is unfair, perhaps. I am fully cognizant that his death was not a punishment. It is an inescapable fact of our existence that we are all not meant to last. Knowing it is inevitable does not lessen the pain, I am sure you would agree. Pain. Far too often it has been my travelling companion in the last few years. I have written three eulogies, now, in my life. I daresay I am becoming an expert.

Terrible occupation, it is, writing signs for people that I may be a limner of the departed. It is a spike of irony that Big Bro essentially taught me to read when we were kids, before I even started first grade. His eulogy another sign for me to paint:

Big Bro had a kind heart and beautiful, troubled mind. Growing up that trouble made him hard to reach, sometimes. As time went on, we drifted apart, the moon and the sun shining on the same sea but different waters. Our orbits were no longer the same. If I thought I was the sun, I forgot my partner the moon.

The sun, however, has a long memory for love. Eventually I came to see that Big Bro was my reflection, and I was fortunate to have it. We began to reach one another after years in different parts of the sky. I was humbled by his love and pride in me. I was astonished at his protectiveness. I was blessed that we could share these things.

Big Bro fought a lot of demons in his life, in his body and his mind, but one place he was happy was out on a boat, deep-sea fishing. It was there that he was happiest, absorbed in the joy of rolling waves and catching fish. He was happy, I think, because some demons cannot cross open water. It was there that he could be at peace, and I am pleased to know that he found some relief.

Big Bro made me realize that I am not the sun. If anything, I am closer to being the sea: restless, hungry and not the same without the moon to change the tides.

Big Bro was also a skilled guitar player, self-taught, and in love with music. It made little difference to him if he became a rock star, he simply loved to play. He could listen to songs and just start playing them, as if it were like breathing. His favorite guitar was a blue Stratocaster, and it had pride of place on his living room wall.

God kicked out the cord, the Marshall stack went silent and the stage was suddenly bare. My hands grasp at the phantom shape of that guitar neck, and my heart aches at the thought that he won’t be around to teach me to play. Big Bro is gone now, and I sit silent in the front row, echoes of a brilliant power chord fading into memory. Brilliant, strange and lovely.

Rock on, my brother, wherever you are.