Can you smell that smell?

There's a scent of shit in the house, but I can't find the source. Maybe I just don't want to look hard enough. I awoke to my dog's whining and let him out, but not before pleading with him through my closed bedroom door to please let me sleep. Let me sleep through this entire day.

It's not just New Year's Day. It's The Bad Anniversary; the day my 48 year-old brother died in 1997 from cancer. A friend suggested that perhaps I took it so hard because I was pissed off at him for getting sick and leaving me. It's an interesting theory, but it's only partially correct.

I was pissed off at the insidious disease that stole my brother from us at an age that's just insanely young to go. Angry that my parents had to lose their child; incensed that a supposedly merciful God could let something like this happen -- to a guy who had everything going for him. I was amazed and horrified at the way his wife treated us during his last moments and immediately after he died.

I have almost come to a tiny (I can't be too generous here) understanding of her now. She probably hated these interlopers who came from the West Coast to be with Steve while he took his last, labored breaths. After all, it was she who had to deal with him on a day-to-day basis. We were only there to witness the final part. Not the months of surgeries and treatments, not the refusal to eat, the weight and hair loss, the ability to take care of his own bodily functions. That might have had something to do with the way she acted; I dunno. It was unforgivable at the time: We weren't distant cousins; we were his immediate family and we all loved each other very much. But, we weren't there. She was, every day. I still don't think it was reason enough to treat us like hell, but she apparently did. I was definitely pissed off at that. She married almost immediately after Steve died. I can't even fathom what was really going on in that house before he passed away, but I wasn't thrilled with her behaviors in any case.

The God problem ... well, it did do one thing for me: It made me realize that, as much as it irked me, I still believed in God. Enough to hate him, anyway. I was completely comfortable as the atheist I'd believed I was until then. However, you can't be pissed off at God if you don't believe he exists. I'm still dealing with this one, and nothing can irk me more than when someone tells me that these types of things are "part of God's plan". If they truly are, then I want him to leave me the hell out of it.

The disease, well, of course, I was pissed off about that, but it certainly wasn't Steve's fault he left us. He'd have stayed if he could -- God knows he tried every way possible to stick around, even though the methods themselves were as cruel to the human body as could be.

I am a little bit perturbed about having to be the oldest child now. Well, there's John, my step-brother, but mostly, he's absent. It's hard for him to deal with everything that's going on; I understand that part. If you weren't raised by my dad, and able to forgive his shortcomings, it'd be hard to take as a step-anything, especially one who had to help pick up the financial pieces after my dad fell apart. I can understand that.

Anyway, I'm not happy about being the oldest now; it wasn't supposed to be my yob -- it was supposed to be Steve's. But, that's not his fault, either. Although there were probably parts of the gig he disliked, he did the responsible older brother thing with aplomb. I stumble through, like someone shoved into the job would do. I try to handle it like matter of management; it's the only way I can do it. Thank goodness, I handle it like it's someone else paying the wages; if I handled it like my house, we'd all be in deep Kim Chi.

So, anyway, there's this smell of shit in the house, and there's no escaping that kind of thing. I'm going to have to try to find it. As for the other crap in my life, I'll have to deal with all that, too. Either by stepping in it, or hauling it out to the trash, it'll get done somehow.