Tomorrow begins the month of April. This month is supposed to be full of celebration as Spring starts to hit full swing. Baseball season hits the second week hard and furious, and then there are the religious celebrations that many practice. What if none of that appeals to you, because of tragic memories? April is a month of loss in my family. Tragic losses. The kind you just don’t get over easily. These wounds fester as time is stolen away. Despite the rejuvenated Earth, the longer days, and the time outside in the fresh air, there is always this feeling of sadness just shadowing everything I feel. That is the month of April (and parts of May) for me. Before I go on… despite this darkness… this isn’t a feel sorry me thing… I just want to write about these losses to keep their memory alive in yet another way.

We start the tragedies with deaths of both grandfathers in the month of April. My maternal grandfather in 1996. This was a hard one as my grandmother died in May of 1993. He essentially gave up living. It was a long painful goodbye, watching a family member just embrace death while living. His depression was so severe that we kept sharps, saws, knives, etc. under lock and key at his home, my parents home, and eventually the nursing home where he lived the remaining nine months of his life. He would have hurt himself severely… that is how bad his depression was. My grandmother was his light, his hope, they were married for 50+ years.

My paternal grandfather who was my beacon of strength and hope passed away in April 2014 at the age of 100.5. My paternal grandfather had a profound influence on me. I think and processed problems like him. I analyzed everything meticulously before making decisions just like he did. He even mentioned to my father how much I reminded him of himself as a child and young adult. He was a highly structured man with precise schedules and routines. I modeled that for myself to make the chaos around my immediate family make sense. Even though he lived a full life of great success and love, it was hard to say goodbye. As my last surviving grandparent it is a crossroads of one’s own mortality. I still think of him often. Especially the 5th of April. This is his death anniversary.

In 2018 a different tragedy occurred that left a scar deep within my heart. This loss was not a person, but my dear canine friend Gus Gus. Gus Gus was a Cane Corso/St. Bernard mix. I got him from the husband of a former student. They named all the puppies after Disney characters. Gus Gus was the perfect name for a dog that would weigh in at 150 lbs. Gus Gus came in to my life the year my previous marriage and life fell apart in ways I can’t count. Gus Gus saved me in more ways than I could count. When I was alone he was always there. He slept by me. He sat by me. He never left my side. Shortly after I returned from a band/choir trip to NYC he became listless late in the evening/early morning. I rushed him to the emergency veterinarian in Iowa City, and I discovered his stomach had twisted. He was in great discomfort. I said goodbye at 2:30 a.m. as I did not think he would survive the surgery. It was just the two of us laying on the floor in the middle of the examination area. His death gutted me… It still haunts me… what if what if what if. Gus Gus would be 11 this May if he would have lived a full life, but it turns out several of his siblings also had strange medical conditions and anomalies that took them at young ages too. We think the St. Bernard father’s genetics were flawed due to inbreeding.

The worst came one year later in 2019. It still feels like a body blow followed by a jab to the nose by Muhammad Ali. My 10 year old step son was diagnosed with Budd-Chiari Syndrome in March. It is a rare liver disease. One in a billion in male children. He won the worst lottery anyone could win. He went in for a routine procedure to clear a path in a hepatic vein. During the surgery the vein failed and started hemorrhaging during the procedure. By the time he was stabilized after this surgery he had received nearly 30 units of blood product. He endured three more surgeries before succumbing to the trauma on the 19th of April. The day before Easter. We drove to Nebraska with a ten year old. We came home without him. Nothing prepares you for the loss of a child. I don’t remember the remaining of the 2018-19 school year with any clarity. I was numb. My wife was numb. Our surviving kids were angry and numb. Of all the tragedies this one still guts us. We don’t celebrate the Easter holiday. In fact this tragedy was the final nail in the coffin for me regarding religion. I practice humanism. It is a secular movement without faith. Yes, I am an atheist. Losing a child was the final straw of million prayers unanswered. This loss is on all the men who failed to do no harm as part of their oath. Gods, saviors, spirits… I’m convinced it is all made up. A grift. A side hustle to control people’s lives… Threats of eternal damnation for what? fascism???

We also learned later that April that my father had brain cancer. They scheduled him for surgery in late July. He took ill. They waited until September, and by then the surgery was useless. The lack of urgency by the doctors helped the glioblastoma get out of control. My dad died in September of 2019. The next spring we endured Covid lockdown from March through early summer. Hundreds of thousands dead from a virus that we didn’t take seriously. It still haunts me a little knowing how careless our government was during that era.

I lost my grandmothers in May of 1993 and 2003 respectively. I also lost my uncle in May of 2000. My maternal grandmother died from a heart attack. My paternal grandmother from heart disease and blood pressure issues. My uncle passed of kidney cancer. He battled that for 10+ years. I mention these losses as I wrote a woodwind trio for flute, clarinet, and bassoon in honor of each of these family members many years ago. I never had it published. It was designed as a companion work for the Walter Piston trio. I entitled it Family Three. I tried to capture their lives as they lived through music. Of everything I have written or arranged this work is my greatest compositional achievement. It is also my most personal musical accomplishment.

April ushers in the death reminders for a period of seven weeks. It is a dark reminder of our mortality. I chose to write this as a way of keeping them alive in yet another way within my sphere of experience. These family members were ordinary people who had some extraordinary influence on my development as a person, teacher, father, and husband. I would not be who I am today without their profound influence. Then there is Gus Gus. I wish everyone had a dog like this in their life. I’ve been lucky, I have had several. I have a shadow box shrine for him, that my wife made. His ashes along with my dear Mia’s ashes sit in our library side by side.

Death is the natural conclusion of life. It is the peace that comes after a lifetime of struggle. I’m just being a bit selfish, I would like more time with all of them. Despite the sadness and darkness, by remembering them and honoring them I am keeping their spirits of life, long or short, alive within myself. This is what April does for me. It is a reminder of the tragedy and in the end all of the love, goodness, and memories…

…so it goes…