Morgan

Today is Morgan, my eldest brother’s birthday. He would have been 46 years old today.

Lately, I have been realizing I don’t talk about him a lot, and when I do, it is more about the impact of his passing and my healing journey, rather than who he was as a person.

Though of course, that pain and story is important, not sharing about him as a person feels like a disservice to the incredible man he was. 

Part of this omission is because truthfully, my memory is pretty cloudy. This is what trauma does. Morgan struggled with his mental health since he was 13, so a lot of my memories are rather dark. Accessing memories has often felt painful and hard.

But Morgan was also full of light; incredible blinding light that warmed every person it touched. When he was little, my mother called him her child of shadow & light in his baby book. I can’t think of a more apt description. I’d like to share some of his light. 

Another reason I suppose I don’t talk about him so much is because very few people ask about him. There are so many people who have come into my life after Morgan left this realm that just don’t know about him or don’t feel like they can ask. I can often sense people’s discomfort and have always tried to protect them from feeling uncomfortable. Or perhaps people can sense my sadness and don’t want to make me uncomfortable. However talking about him as a person never makes me uncomfortable. In fact, it brings me comfort. I love my family and have always been proud of them. I love people to know them. Often the conversation is solely centred around his death and stops there. I had (have) a brother who died by suicide right before his 26th and my 21st birthday. End of conversation. But Morgan was so much more than his illness or his death.

Morgan was one of the most brilliant and talented people I have ever known, a sentiment shared by many people who had the pleasure of meeting him. All his enrichment programs reported an incredibly intelligent & creative student who consistently needed more of a challenge and could do great things if he applied himself. Often my grief is around who he didn’t get to become, what he didn’t get to do and experience, and what he didn’t get to create. 

His thirst for knowledge, which started as a young child, was unquenchable. He was often found with his nose in a book or engaging in philosophical conversations with whoever would be willing to invest the time and energy (sometimes it was a big investment, let me tell you). 

His apartment was full of books, one of his greatest loves, newspapers, and notebooks full of his thoughts and musings. He liked the works of authors such as Kafta, Timothy Leary, Aldous Huxley, Edgar Allan Poe, to name a few, but equally loved textbooks, political theory, language, musical theory, and biographies of his favourite thought leaders and musicians. 

He was passionate about politics and world affairs and loved to discuss/debate them, ad nauseam.  He loved a good debate and could often outwit and out-tire his opponent. He studied history, particularly WWII, English & Linguistics. He was learning German and Korean. He was getting his degree when he died. 

He kept himself up-to-date on world events and current affairs, much of which was a big source of his pain and suffering. He hated greed & suffering and it weighed heavy on him. I believe he often saw the world as a dark, painful, and unfair place (I mean, he wasn’t wrong). I think of him often, wondering what he would think of the current climate and look to him for advice on how to be a good citizen of the world. It makes me miss him, and yet, I am sort of glad he isn’t here to see the state of things. 

Music was likely his greatest love. An incredibly talented musician, he played guitar, saxophone (and clarinet), bass and stand-up bass (and I might be forgetting some. I feel like he might have been teaching himself flute and accordion at one point). Not a religious person, we would sometimes go to church because they would let him play the organ. He was constantly engrossing himself in music; new and old: Pinback, Califone, Brad, Peter Tosh, Tom Waits, Breeders, Roots Manuva, Don Ross, Jimi Hendrix, NIN, Mozart, Primus, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Dead Prez, Bob Marley, Sly and the Family Stone, and so, so many more.

Often getting lost in a song, I can still vaguely picture him throwing his head back and dancing- an image I wish was sharper in my memory.

My other brother, Liam, was closely connected to him through music; both musicians and music aficionados. Now, we often hear new music and wonder if Morgan would have liked it, again saddened by what he didn’t get to experience. 

In fact, Morgan’s love of music was so great, that it was when he told me, perhaps a month before he died, that he no longer found joy in music, that I knew this was the end. 

He felt things so deeply. The good, bad, and the ugly. Everything was extremes with him. Extreme highs, extreme lows. Extreme pain and extreme joy. Tenderness & Anger.  Shadow and light. 

While he felt things very deeply and experienced a lot of pain, he had an equal appreciation for the “finer things in life”; including women, alcohol and psychedelics, and good food. He also appreciated the smaller things in life, a trait he learned from my parents, and one that he (and they) was instrumental in instilling in me. Whether it be a delicious piece of fruit, my mother’s gardens, a hot cup of coffee, a thunderstorm, a song, or a gorgeous sunrise on the roof, he certainly had an appreciation for the smaller things in life. 

He was always present, something I have always admired. Present in his experience. Present in his senses. To his feelings. To others’ feelings. He was always present with people; like he was really interested and really listening. This is something I have heard about him from others over and over. He commanded presence when he walked into a room. He was a presence. 

He, like my father, was also incredibly non-judgemental. He understood social structures and how oppression was delicately weaved within systems and didn’t judge people for their position. He hung out with people who had been marginalized, people were struggling, people who were misunderstood. Healthy and unwell folks, wealthy and poor. His place was full of unusual and interesting characters; a lively debate, music, libations, and likely a game of chess.

When he went downtown, it seemed like he knew almost everyone (also incidentally like my dad). He liked talking to people and people liked talking to him. 

At his funeral, we ran out of chairs; people spilling out into the corridor and down the hallway to outside the doors. He left an impact on a lot of people. Something that I still hear reflected from folks today. 

When asked in his online memorial to describe him in one word-

Passionate. Compassionate. Intense. Brilliant. Present. Genius. Creative. Gentle. Pensive. Genuine. Intuitive. To name a few. 

Brother. To me, he will always be my brother first and foremost. Also my hero. Mentor. Supporter. In my baby book, my mom wrote, “Liv utterly adores her brothers”, something that remains true to this day. When I was 16 I took the bus out to B.C and back by myself (I do not recommend). After the 3 day return trip on a bus, getting stuck in Toronto, convincing my poor father to come pick me up at the bus station in Toronto, the first thing I did when I got home was get back in the car and drive to Morgan’s place. I couldn’t wait to tell him all about my adventures. I wish I still could. I like to think he is watching and is just as excited for me now as he was then.

Last week marked 20 years since his pain became unbearable and he left this realm. It also marks the beginning of the next phase in my life where I have lived longer without him than with him. That one really cuts deep. Like every year I get further and further from him.

So, this year I really wanted to live in his memory, instead of just the sadness of missing him (that was there too). My remaining family and I ate some of his favourite foods, listened to some of his favourite music, drank wine, shared memories, and went through some of his old school work and writings. We even listened to a few of his recordings. It was wild how quickly I was transported back to being a teenager, going about my teenage life, as the music of my brothers playing guitar and bass through amplifiers filled our tiny house. 

And it made me feel closer to him. Not just the pain of losing him, but closer to him and the incredible person he was. 

This is how we carry on the legacy of our loved ones. We speak their names, tell their stories, (write blogs for strangers on the internet), carry on their traditions. We bask in memories, good and painful. We remember their favourite flavours and smells that remind us of them. We do the work they didn’t get to do. We share them with others we love.  This is how we continue to carry them with us, throughout the rest of our time here without them, in our hearts. This is how they live on.

So today, on the day of his birth, 46 years ago, instead of focusing on his death, I am choosing to celebrate his life. 

Happy Birthday Morgan. Love you always and forever.