Better, perhaps, the death of a loved one’s loved one be left without words. Instead I offer these paltry ones of my own.
As my sister Nancy knows, I never really knew my nephew Brian. But three moments are inscribed in my memory.
The first is the time when he was misbehaving in West Edmonton Mall, circa 1987. Nothing really, just the misplaced energy of a five year old. Suddenly the ghost of Granny kicked in. Honestly, that’s how it feels. I grabbed his wrist, gave it a yank, twisting his arm. He shouted out, more in surprise and than even simulated pain. But I got his attention.and he settled down. A recollection which bears more on my own surprise at having used force on him, plus a shadow of regret.
The second is more intense, yet more diffuse and also backhandedly personal. In 2000, when I was living in Tuscany, I learned about the car accident he had in which a jogger had died in a collision. of a car he was at the wheel of. I was thousands of miles away but can recall to this day details of the accident as related to me.
But the reason I have such a vivid memory is I had had similar accident at the same age as Brian, 17, one in which someone else died,. Like Brian, I was exonerated by the law. But perhaps not by myself.
The third is embedded in a photo, I acquired in connection with my handing over to him Dad’s old guitar, which he is holding in it.
Brian was above all a musician, a lead man of the Austin group Hello Caller? In fact, the reason he gave for not accepting chemo and radiation treatment after he was diagnosed with fourth stage astrocytoma two years ago (and given six months to live) was that he didn’t want to risk losing himself before he had finished an album. He did finish it, and was ready to do more.
In the future I hope to place Brian in what I call the contemporary Lang Maclaine family tradition of music. This disparate group includes, the patriarch Davo Lang, his son Ben and daughter Melanie, my cousin Red Dog and late brother Steve, to name just members of the two generations which preceded Brian’s.
But let me now add only the three above anecdotes to the pool of memories others bring to celebrate Brian. My sister Nancy’s are the ones that count.