Looking Forward to the Past: Digital Grieving, Rembering my Brother

My younger brother, Mark, died in a hiking accident in Long Canyon, Sedona, AZ, 10 years ago next month. I wasn't with him when he fell 45 feet from a cliff face onto his head. But I've never met the man who was. I've talked to him on the phone. He told me about his struggle to pull my brother back up by his belt, his panicked yell to an echoing canyon as he felt his grip slipping, his scramble down the mountain to try and resuscitate Mark. But I've never looked him in the eye, shook his hand, or hugged him.

When I cleaned out my brother’s apartment, I found artifacts from a life I barely recognized. Finding this man will help me find my brother. This is my journey to find him, to find both of them, and rediscover the life I had with my only sibling.

Me and Mark at a party in high school
Photo: Gary Kliczinski

After 10 years, I'm not sure what bothers me more: that I didn't hug Mark as he rode away from my apartment on his bike, taking for granted that I'd see him again soon, or that I seem to be losing traces of him in my life. I've got photos, memories, and conversations with family members. But even though he died in 2001, before twitter, facebook, and the deluge of personal web pages, I find myself Googling his name. Maybe I'm expecting to come across someone in cyberspace remembering him via blog, like I am now. Maybe I want some evidence that his life spread out and touched more just the small group of people who knew him.

Maybe. I've since realized this process is a kind of digital grieving. I know I'm not going to find much, if anything at all. His friends and mine have posted some old photos. But I keep searching, because I understand it's the searching that's important, the deferment of finding something that keeps me going, because if I can keep searching, the possibility that I might find something new about his life is always present. Of course, my searching is also my mourning. I don't think I'll ever stop mourning, though my grief has dissipated. I don't know how Mark's friend feels. I can't imagine how he deals with it, but I'd like to find out.

How does this relate to teaching?
Although I teach and publish ethnographic and performative writing on topics like grief, health, gender, and family communication, which certainly includes this project, I'll be shifting digital platforms and continue to keep this one primarily about life in the academy. It's an arbitrary distinction, but one I'm making for the time being.

As for my search for the last person to see my brother alive, you can read about my ongoing journey here.