15 Years: Remembering Jonathan Corking

Today marks the 15th anniversary of my brother’s death.  He would have been 33 this year, but we only got him for 17 years.

I’ve written about my gorgeous baby brother Jonathan before, you can see the entries here and here.

But today, 15 years since that awful day, I thought I’d share a wonderful story that warms my heart every single time I read it. It begins a few years ago, when my Mum stumbled upon a website for Tourette’s Syndrome (you may already know, Jonathan was a sufferer and we believe the symptoms of which and his suicide were inextricably linked).

A little history – not long after Jonathan’s death, our family sponsored a Tourette’s Syndrome seminar in Waterloo, in partnership with Dr. Mort Doran (Tourette’s expert) and Shane Fistell (Tourette’s patient, and motivational speaker.) We thought that it would help explain things for his friends and classmates, and help them come to terms with their loss.

Fast forward over ten years later, to my Mum surfing around the internet for news of Shane and Dr. Doran, and she stumbled upon a website called “Life’s A Twitch”, founded by Duncan McKinley, a registered Psychologist with the College of Psychologists of Ontario, practicing with children and adolescents in the areas of clinical and school psychology – AKA one of Canada’s leading TS experts. She felt moved by what she read, and decided to contact Dr McKinley. What follows is their email exchange.

------ Original Message ------

Subject: T.S.

From: Janet Corking

To: Duncan McKinley

Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2007 11:59

Hello Duncan. I don’t have a question, rather a letter for you to tell my

story. Even after 11 years its good to 'offload'.
My son Jonathan committed suicide in Sept 1996. He was in the process of being diagnosed with TS (after self-diagnosing). He was very depressed. I met Dr. Doran when he came to Waterloo Ed Centre in January 1997 to host a seminar with money raised after Jonathan's death. He and another young man (his name escapes me at the moment) he was from Toronto. The two of them helped to edcuate the children and the teachers in our community about TS. I guess I just wanted to say to you that if i have one regret, its that you werent a little older and were in the place where you are now you could, i am sure have helped Jonathan with his struggles. I follow the TS stories and developements in research and if i had only known then what I know now.......... We as a family have learned a lot this past 11 years, healed a bit, and reflected a lot. I thank you for your efforts to educate the world about TS and helped make people more tolerant of this disorder.

Sincerely, Janet Corking. Cambridge Ontario.

And this is Dr. McKinlay's reply:

----- Original Message -----

From: "McKinlay, Duncan"

To: Corking, Janet

Sent: Friday, March 02, 2007 1:01 PM

Subject: RE: T.S.

Janet:

I'm so sorry to learn of your loss, but am honoured that you felt comfortable in sharing with me. Allow me to share something with you now which I hope helps with your "one regret"...

While it was during my undergraduate years that I learned about my own TS, and while I did some first tentative talks on it in my 4th year, it wasn't until my first year of graduate school that I really became involved in the TS cause via the TSFC and made the decision to work in this field. What caused me to first "meet" the TSFC, and launched me into everything subsequent, was my attendance at a seminar held by Dr. Mort Doran and Shane Fistell.

In Waterloo.

In January 1997.

Made possible through funds raised from Jonathan's death.

Thank ME? To the contrary -- it's nice to finally know who I have to thank for MY life path...

Your son did not die in vain. His parting gift to the world was me.

I wish you and your family well in your continued healing. Take good care, Janet.

Duncan

To mark the anniversary of Jonathan’s death, I have set up a donations page with help from the kind folks over at CanadaHelps – if you feel inclined, please join me in making a donation in Jonathan’s memory. I have chosen three charities: The Tourette’s Syndrome Foundation of Canada, The Tourette’s Syndrome Association of Ontario and the Waterloo Region Suicide Prevention Council.

You can find the page by clicking here, or pasting this link into your web browser: 

http://www.canadahelps.org/gp/14575

Thank you, on behalf of our whole family.  Please use the comments field to share your favourite memories of Jonathan; I'm sure my Mum and Dad would love to hear your stories of him.

Suicide

In the weeks following what happened to my brother, I was ruined with sorrow. I remember little about the detail of that time, but am left with an overwhelming awareness of detachment – I was me… yet somehow… not. That is to say – my body was there, but I always feel like my spirit was elsewhere – wrenched away from the rest of me by the weight of my anguish and helplessness. In desperate attempts to get it back, I used to spend all night scavenging the internet for scraps of comfort. I felt a razor-sharp sense of isolation; I was looking for solace in someone – anyone – who would really understand how I felt but my searches bore no fruit. I whirled in an agonising loop -- I could not be comforted or of comfort to anyone. It was a very dark time. I’d lost my baby brother, and I didn’t know how to stop myself from falling out through the hole that he had left.

Even though it has been 15 years and the title of this post is exactly what happened to our family, I can’t bring myself to actually say that word. I’ve jailed those three syllables at the bottom of one of my lungs and never let them even whisper themselves out. I say, “…since we lost Jonathan,” or sometimes, “My brother died when I was 20.” I’ve talked here before about how talking about what happened usually makes other people uncomfortable on my behalf, so I don’t solicit conversation about it for their sake, really. 

Jonathan is always in my thoughts.  Sometimes I think about his life, sometimes I cry about his death.  Sometimes I delight in his presence.  Lots of times I am reminded of him because I hear sad news of similar tragedies in other people’s families. 

A few years ago, what happened to me happened to someone I used to go to school with.  We weren’t close; I couldn’t claim any particular acquaintance with him other than that we’d been in the same class in elementary school and high school but when I heard the news that his younger brother, too, had taken his own life I felt the shadow on my own heart make its presence known.

I feel an odd sense of … I don’t know – duty and obligation are both too strong a word; but I still wonder if I could be for others what I so desperately searched for all those years ago.  But how do you make such an approach?  You couldn’t, without appearing intrusive or creepy.  But that sense, whatever it is, doesn’t ever seem to abate, and I think about my former classmate occasionally and wish we lived in the same town, such that the likelihood of our paths crossing might be increased.  There is a lingering unresolvedness (and I know that’s not a real word) which burned a little warmer this week, fuelled by some sad news that another brother - a friend of a friend - had ended his own life as well.  Last night I dreamed about it all.  I woke up and wrote it all down (er… well, typed it into my iPhone). Click on the picture to read the dream properly.

I hope they're all okay.

Some reference:

“…your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm.” Hey That’s No Way to Say Goodbye – Leonard Cohen

 

Coventry Carol (has always been one of my favourites at Christmas)

Remembering Jonathan - Hoc Quoque Transibit

As soon as I reach for the thermostat and jolt the radiators into life after their summer of rest, I know that Autumn is on its way and with it comes an unwelcome reminder of a time of year I would rather not remember at all, much less commemorate. Tomorrow marks 13 years since we lost my baby brother, Jonathan Corking. And in less than two weeks time (4th October) it will be what would have been his 31st birthday.

July 1996 - the only picture in which 

I can see our family resemblance.

We all acknowledge these anniversaries in different ways – across oceans and over the years. My parents feel it keenly; rattling around in that big old house, the emptiness of the rooms a cruel reminder of the absence of their son. Me? I’m different year on year. Some years Jonathan’s Anniversary has passed and I have barely noticed it amidst the chaos of formula milk and pooey nappies and ironing school uniforms and the minutiae of Mammy-ing. Some years I can tell Jason stories about him, recall fond memories with a smile, have a drink for him and keep it together. Some years I’m paralysed by my grief, crippled and bedridden with it, sentencing myself to a bitter purgatory of clockwatching – “What was I doing this time on that day? Where was he? What was he thinking? What was he feeling? What could I have done differently?” So it will always be.

hHead... remember them?  Supporting the Candian music scene... right on, kiddo.

But mine is a quiet and private mourning, for the most part. I have learned enough over the years that it is preferable for me to keep it to myself, as a preservation technique so as not to upset my Mum and Dad, really. People in grief are like pillars of a temple – you can’t adjust your position to lean on another lest the whole structure wobble and crumble. At least that’s how it works in our family. Don’t get me wrong ... that is not to say that we don’t stand close and frequently remember together what he was like, and how much we miss him. Because we SO do. The daily rigours of missing him is like a blurring of your peripheral vision; your view of the world is permanently altered and mocks you every time you open your eyes with a painful reminder of things not being quite as they should be.

But then I think – is it as it should be? Was Jonathan’s mortal coil predestined to be years and years shorter than the rest of ours? Did he shuffle off it before his time, or was he in our lives for exactly the amount of time he ever was supposed to be and not a second longer? If I’m honest, I take comfort in the latter. Because as much as I would have him back in a heartbeat, I can’t find any peace in imagining what his life would have been like if he hadn’t ended it when he did. Maybe he would have got better? Or worse. It really doesn’t bear thinking about.

So today, as I type this, I am sad. Tomorrow, I might be worse, I might not. But the shape of my sorrow, 13 years later looms aching with regret and disappointment as opposed to the sharp heartache of when our loss was fresh. I regret that he never met my husband. I grieve for the fact that my sons will never know their uncle. Ben isn’t even 5 yet – all he knows is that Uncle Jonathan has gone to be an angel, but beyond that we have never discussed him, save for passing references about how much Jonjo would have doted on his nephews. And dote he would: he’d have been their rough-and-tumble tag team wrestling partner, he’d have built the best Lego rockets and towers, he’d have taught them to play guitar, showed them how to skip stones on still water and make words rhyme. I’m sad that the only presence he has in their lives will be pictures in frames. Of course, there then follows the myriad of questions about the direction my life’s path took after Jonathan died – would I have met Jason, and consequently had my two beautiful boys, had Jonathan not gone when he did? Who knows.

"Hoc quoque transibit” – roughly translated from Latin; “this too shall pass.” Something I would have never believed in 1996, 1997, 1998 or 1999 when I was attempting to scramble my way upwards out of a dark well of grief and depression following Jonathan’s death. But it’s true – and to kill a cliché – Time Heals All Wounds. True, but it has taken its time scabbing them over and there are bruises and scars left as souvenirs of remembrance.

Part of Jonathan's ashes are here in England, in my grandparents' grave in Castleford.

Miss you, little brother. Love always.