KENNETH BRAND

Condolences & Memories (2 entries)

• My daddy and me; quite the pair. The first ten years or more of our relationship were filled rage and violence. A violence for which even my daddy, Kenneth D. Brand was mystified regarding, "I don't know why I did those things to you," he would say in later years, "It was like a demon came over me. As a result I lived in terror of the duality of my father. There was the father who was the rage-aholic, the torturer and then there was the fun spirited joker, the generous man. The kind of man who would stop the car and pick up the glass of a broken bottle and clear it from the road. But, my daddy came clean---he fully admitted his actions in those formative years. All the while there was the music; Glenn Miller, Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, James Last, Benny Goodman, and Johnny Cash to name a few. I desired by age 20 or so to form a greater bond, an intimacy with my father. As I stepped forward he responded. We openly expressed our love for each other. We loved to talk for hours, in person, and especially over the phone. We talked about history and music, entertainment and politics. We were pals in the end. He loved God and supported me in every way. In fact, he doted on me. Daddy, I miss you---as you know I still speak with you and ask you for help. I hope to see you again someday. On the other side we will understand it all. " Memory Meditation 16 of 52 And Mary remembered all these things in her heart. — Luke 2:19, 51 Memory is the basis for both pain and rejoicing. We cannot have one without the other, it seems. Do not be too quick to heal all of those bad memories unless it means also feeling them deeply, which means to first learn what they have to teach you. God calls us to suffer (read “allow”) the whole of reality, to remember the good along with the bad. Perhaps that is the course of the journey toward new sight and new hope. Memory creates a readiness for salvation, an emptiness to receive love and a fullness to enjoy it. Strangely enough, it seems so much easier to remember the hurts, the failures, and the rejections. It is much more common to gather our life energy around a hurt than a joy, for some sad reason. Try to remember and give thanks for the good things even more than the bad, but learn from both of them. And most of all, as the prophet Baruch said, “Rejoice that you yourself are remembered by God” (5:5), which is the Big Memory that can hold and receive, heal and forgive, all of the smaller ones." Richard Rohr's Daily Meditations: Memory -- Ecumenism -- June 20, 2013 - Posted by: Andrew William Brand (3rd Son) on: Jun 20, 2013

• Laid to rest on a cold day in January 2012, and dearly missed ever since. I listen often to "Jerusalem" Tijuana Brass and muse about you, Daddy. We laid you to rest with The Lonely Bull blaring through the country side from the speakers of the rental van there in Nelsonville Cemetery... I love you so much, I miss you dearly, God rest your soul... - Posted by: Laurence Brand (son number 4) on: Jun 18, 2013