Friday evening and I’m standing out under the awning of O’Briens Funeral Home in , taking an uneasy drag off a bummed cigarette in my only suit. Not being a regular smoker I catch myself gaging every few drags I take as it burns my throat, but at least for those few precious moments I have a distraction from the proceedings inside.

I turn my head to catch a glimpse of a silver lining on the gray clouds above, thinking of how when I pulled up Neil Young’s “Spirit In The Sky” was playing on the radio and pondering the irony of it all. That a week so fraught with pain and suffering could have such signs of optimism planted at just the right place and just the right time.

The man who’s funeral I attended was that of John Chambers III, uncle to my sister by blood and to me through my mother’s marriage to his brother David. The bond with that part of our family would had all but withered and died after my step-fathers passing, but John’s wife Bev and their kids reached out and dragged my sister and I back in somewhat after our mom passed. Still, most of the Chambers were flung about in Pennsylvania and Florida so most of how time has treated them remained a mystery to us until that fated Tuesday phone call started these wheels in motion.

His daughter Bev was to be married this past Saturday. I was supposed to supposed to meet with family, some members of which I hadn’t seen in over a decade, in the same three piece suit over drinks, bad music and your choice of chicken or fish. His son Brian is a freshman in high school and about the same age as I was when my step-dad passed, and his son John the IV is the closest in age to myself, now left to man the head of the household. And his wife Bev, the single reason outside of my sister that I still feel like a member of the family in the first place.

While the thought of John’s passing is hard enough to swallow, the manner of it is harder still for me to fathom. All of the details I know I can’t share, and what I do know is only the barest of facts, but I will say that his passing was the same as his brother before him: at his own hands. His son John was the unfortunate one to find him, a sorrow I wish had not been bestowed upon him.

That fact has brought up a host of old memories and emotions to rumble through my head, but the most tangible of those was anger. Anger mostly bred out of confusion and frustration. If things were so grim, why not ask for help? How could he leave those who care for him so much? How, especially after he swore to his brother before him that he would never choose the same path?

It was all I could do to keep my thoughts to myself for the moment, as conflicted as I was between duty, mourning, anger and the frustration of having the world crash for someone you care for and only being able to watch as they rifle through the scattered pieces.

I filtered back inside and took my place in time to hear a reverend give a rather nice sermon and tried to help the wounded among them. As much as the readings he pulled from the bible fit the situation and his explanation helped to relate the trials of Jesus’ disciples to the grieving, it was a little bit of terrestrial knowledge that helped me the most that night. He mentioned that whenever he needed to put things into perspective, he would go to the ocean. Sounded like a good course of action to me.

I left the funeral home and drove to the Manasquan Inlet, the closest I could get to the mighty Atlantic without leaving the safety and dryness of my car as the earlier drizzle had turned into a full out deluge of rain. There I parked and stared out into the churning waters of the Inlet, black as ink and capped in foam and reflected light from across it’s width. I gazed out to the east and the sky and ocean became one gapping abyss, the maw dotted occasionally with a flashing channel marker light like some red demon eye blinking.

And there I bared my soul to him. I yelled at my uncle. I screamed at him. I chastised him for leaving behind so much. I let my anger flow out into that darkness, leaving nothing behind. And as I felt the weight of the world leave my body, I was able to start mourning the man who everyone else could see him for, and not the demons I had.

I joined the rest of the family for a evening get together, a party of sorts for the survivors. The time to let the mending begin, if only on a small scale. But as I know all to well, time is a salve that heals, but it only works at it’s own pace. I stood out on that porch, beer in hand trading stories and laughs with all there, I could see it starting, but the road ahead is long and arduous for those closet to him.

My thoughts go out to them tonight….