Forever stamp

34

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October 1, 2014

Dear Charlie,

Just seven years after publishing your poem Burial At Sea / holding quiet weight / and / feeling stiff satin plumage / resolves / Burial at Sea / you also stretched great wings to fly their / new, soft spiral / wonderfully silent / away.

When you were on water, did she speak of your looming death? Was she your playmate, your lover or foe?

Are we drawn to elements that eventually undraw us?

I think about what it must have been like to sink into great depths, to see a bottomless eternity below and feel your weight drawn into it. Did you feel pulled? Or did you soar, like the gull, wingless sails outstretched to guide you somewhere beyond?

Are your bones still at the bottom? Were they ever?

I’m still in Wisconsin. Dave and I were supposed to fly back to Oregon today but a fire started at O’hare airport and our connecting flight was canceled. Instead of wasting a day with airline agents, we rode serendipity and spent an extra vacation day exploring Milwaukee. I especially wanted to visit the Wisconsin Historical Society and learn more about you. We scoured the data base and found articles on the accident, your high-school paperboy band, a few old pamphlets announcing live readings and music gigs. I found a bit on your television series Long Ago Is All Around, which you proudly claimed as “the number one show in nursing homes.” I’d give my left pinky toe to know if you were bragging or meant that as a joke. I also learned that, as one newspaper wrote, you have a “special way with children” and alongside your co-host coonhound Ranger, performed gigs at Wisconsin elementary schools teaching poetry and history through song.

Did you ever visit my school? Would you have recognized yourself in the pig-tailed girl singing along enthusiastically in the front row? Would you have been irritated or amused if she threw herself on Ranger and wouldn’t let go?

Researching Charlie is a welcome distraction for my undefined, homeless emotions. Sleuthing gives sadness a temporary place to land. But after a few hours at the library, Dave and I have exhausted our search. I’m not satisfied. An unsettling mystery surrounds Charlie’s death, but I sense it lived in him long before, through his creative voice and the maverick spark that fueled it. I need more information. His narrative is piecemeal, like an old film-strip with too many lost frames.

Upon returning to Portland I decide—gulp—to reach out to Charlie’s siblings. They may have some of those frames. They may also want to know their beloved brother left a part of himself behind.

I craft a letter, working through shock and emotion as I write. I am not 100% sure I will send it, but my words on the screen make it real. And possible. My old, dangerous foe Impulsivity wins. I have to send it. My life depends on it. I hit COMMAND P, fold the paper carefully and stuff it in an envelope. I seal my fate with a Forever stamp.

“The number one show in nursing homes.”

Horizontal striped tees seemed to be a thing for Charlie

He’s also a tree surgeon?

October 2, 2014

Dear Richard,

I’m not quite sure how to write this letter, so forgive me if I stumble. I think it’s best I just jump right in.

When I was 17 years old, my mom took me for a long walk along the NE shoreline of Lake Winnebago. Apparently I had become old enough to hear that there was a question about my paternity. I was born in 1975 and though it wasn’t really the “summer of love” anymore, my mom and dad both had explored extra-marital partners. Perhaps I was too absorbed in my own teenage angst to give this news too much thought at the time. We were also still in the happy days of pre-internet (and accessible DNA tests) so finding more information was difficult without a lot of invasive sleuthing. I loved my father dearly and decided that the facts of my DNA didn’t matter. He died suddenly in a car accident a half-year later and this only solidified my emotional alliance to the “nurture” part of the “nature vs. nurture” equation. Eventually I forgot all about it.

But here is the story as it has unfolded and continues to unfold.

My mom met your brother Charles Brauer at the Mariposa Festival in Canada on the summer solstice, 1974. He sang a little song “You’re Much Too Pretty” as she walked by and they ended up sharing an evening together. My mom, thinking she was already a few weeks pregnant at the festival, wasn’t surprised when a test later confirmed it. During that period of time, my mom only had one extra-marital affair (the evening with Charles) so neither she or my dad claimed to have questions about my paternity. Or if my dad did, he never pursued it and decided to love me as his own.

So here’s a little side-note about nature vs. nurture. I come from a family of doctors, psychotherapists and other wellness-oriented fields. Growing up, I followed my family’s footsteps while simultaneously feeling like I didn’t quite belong. I danced classical ballet for fifteen years, played musical instruments, wrote stories and found my sense of home through the arts without anyone encouraging or guiding me this way. In fact, most of the time my family just scratched their heads. Upon graduating from college, I even bought myself a banjo and recently discovered that this too was one of Charles’ beloved instruments. I completely abandoned a path in medicine nine years ago and am now happily following a career in filmmaking and photography and exploring my love for storytelling, especially as a tool for healing.

So back to the present. I spent a week with my mom this spring in Mexico and during a long walk on the beach, she revealed more details about Charles that I hadn’t heard before—his last name, his creative pursuits. With the help of Google, I started filling in details on my trip home, and found some old albums on ebay that nearly stopped my heart—I saw myself in Charles’ face. I also watched one of his educational television segments where he discussed birds of prey and when I saw his hands close-up, the strikingly long nail beds and fingers, even the crooked pinky joints, it nearly sealed the deal.

I also learned about the tragic event of Charles’ Lake Michigan late summer voyage and can only imagine how painful that loss must have been (and still is) for you and your entire family. I remember throwing my dad’s ashes into Lake Winnebago when I was eighteen and I still, half a life later, feel the mysterious and tangled pull of grief on my heart.

With suspicions growing I decided to find out the truth. My brother Eric and I took a DNA test last month and the results came in. I convinced myself that I’d be alright with any outcome, but secretly thought I’d find out what I’d always known, that my dad was my dad. But when the tests came back and I had confirmation (it shows that Eric and I are half-siblings) I find myself logging in to the site every morning to check and recheck the results in disbelief.

Now, of course, anyone in their right mind would probably be a bit incredulous of this story. And I completely understand these feelings. I, myself, am needing to move cautiously and am also open to the possibility of error. For all I know, I may even have the wrong brother Richard and if this is the case, please use this letter as inspiration on your next screenplay or a good laugh with your production crew.

I do know my mother wasn’t with anyone else other than my father during the time of my conception and that there is no question around my brother’s paternity.

I also know this letter is probably very difficult and maybe even painful to receive. I can only imagine what it would be like to be in your shoes, to lose a loving, free-spirit of a brother many years ago, only to find out that part of him might still live on. Please know that my decision to write you is only because I feel that when I reverse the table, I would want to know. I do not come to you with any expectations. I just have this simple yearning to know more about Charles’ life and how his paternal imprint lives through me. I am simply seeking more information on his all-too-short existence here on this planet.

I’ve lived with this mystery my whole life and I can continue to do so. So if you don’t want to reply, I completely respect your wishes and privacy (and the rest of your family’s) and you will never hear from me again.

And if you do decide to connect, well… that could be a very sweet and strange homecoming for us all.

I would be happy to share my online DNA profile with you if you need confirmation and want to do your own test. You can also find me on all the normal social networking sites under Kimberly Warner or my website www.kimberlywarner.com in case you need to assuage some part of you that worries I’m some sort of lunatic.

I do hope this finds you well. And again, if I’ve found the wrong Richard, please accept my apologies. My husband and I just returned from a late summer holiday in Wisconsin to spend time with Lake Michigan and Winnebago and say hello to the magnificent midwestern season in transition. We also enjoyed a few hours at the Milwaukee Historical Society and found some newspaper clippings on Charles’ live performances and the WPT television show “Long Ago is All Around.” And I suppose that title about sums it up for me. In pursuing more information about Charles’ life long ago, I hope my present life can be a more intimate and informed celebration of the man who unknowingly shared his passion and spirit with a daughter.

I hope this finds you with a smile.

Sincerely,

Kimberly

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