5-15-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #16

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

EULOGY, part 2 (con’t)

And how about this one, also by my brother, Tom Agnelli?

WORDS

Sighs and byes and apple pies,

Lines and blinds and sorry minds,

If your truths turn black,

And you want to attack,

You might find,

You want to unwind.

They say we’re precious gold,.

And our lives will unfold

And will make the scene someday,.

If we re what we say.

Hey are you lonely

Haven’t got a friend?

Bettina’s got something,

And it never seems to end.

You go through all your problems,

You know it hurts me so,

But maybe it’s just my issues,

And I wish they’d let you go.

Brother Tom could be smart, funny, interesting – and demanding, unreasoning, stubborn – but as his friend, Frank, always said, he had this deep down optimism and would always bounce back.

But towards the end, Tommy’s physical health got to the point of no return.  His confusion and anger about life – and his ambivalence about being alive – finally hit the tipping point. 

Here’s the last poem I’ll read – but there are so many more, so many good ones that must be shared. . .

TRUTH

By Tom Agnelli

I laugh I cry

It’s too painful,

To say goodbye

I look around

I say a prayer

It’s hard to know that

You’re not there.

And yet there’s Heaven

In the sky

And I know where

my spirit lies

A part of me

Wants to be,

Let me let go

Set me free

Tommy, we hear you.  We understand.  We love you.  (I wrote this to be read on August 5, 2011, at his Saint Anastasia’s Church funeral mass. . .)

5-14-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #15

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

I will always love this quote about writing, best:  “There’s nothing to writing.  All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”  Red Smith (1905 – 1982)

This is certainly true of my late brother and of me, writing about him – albeit on a computer rather than a typewriter.

(this is my little portable typewriter from England circa 1925)

EULOGY  for Thomas Agnelli, R.I.P.

Our brother, Tom – or Tommy – had a thing for being understood.  He was a talented guy, with words and music, being the product of a writer, Bernard, and a musician, Barbara.  But he also struggled his whole life with chemical imbalances that resulted in Schizo-Affective Disorder.  He craved love, then pushed it away.  He couldn’t help himself.

At any rate, because or in spite of this, Tom had a burning desire to be UNDERSTOOD.

Just after our mother, Barbara, passed away in 1997, we noticed Tommy started writing poetry.  In addition to jamming on the electric guitar (playing the blues and rock), this new verbal form of expression, poetry, was planted in Tom and just blossomed.

More than anything, these poems are so expressive, so eloquent, so revealing.  (AND they’re compact – like all good poetry.)  Our brother was a multifaceted talent in so many ways – and as changeable as a summer’s day: sunny, suddenly cloudy, chance of showers, frequent thunderstorms. . . . then sunny again.

Tom’s faith is his God was touching and complete:

(Tom Agnelli’s poem, BELIEF)

He is God when you don’t believe,

Bright as the sun and hard to be,

Do you shout to one who isn’t there

Call me anew when you’re back again.

Finding the edge off during wonder

And pain,

Thought it might come back as rain again,

My heart raised on a cross of word,

He wanted to express himself as

Understood.

5-13-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #14

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

RAISED WITH MENTAL ILLNESS: A POSITIVE

(from page 55, middle, Girls of Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith)

“When I grow up and come to fictionalize Tyler [the author’s autistic brother] in my first novel, a writer from Boston calls me to ask if I will agree to be interviewed for a book about the effects a sibling suffering from mental illness has on a brother or sister.  Her own sibling, a sister, is schizophrenic.  The writer says to me, I’d come home form school and my other would ask me to pitch in with cleaning up the kitchen because my sister had, once again, slit her wrists.  My mother and I would start wiping up all the blood.  My mother would say, Let’s have all this cleaned up before dinner.  As if my sister had spilled the sugar bowl.

The writer finds that children who are raised with mental illness in their homes develop a wonderful coping mechanism that will affect them favorably all their lives.  The good that comes of being raised in a loony bin is our ability to weather the most awful of crises -- remain calm and take care of business.  In other words, we do not say a word, just wipe up the blood and move on like nothing ever happened.”

5-12-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #13

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

SPELLING BEE

Being in a Diocese of Brooklyn Catholic school spelling bee was a big deal.  This is a huge parish, with millions of people and hundreds of thousands of kids enrolled in the schools. This annual spelling bee was held for grade eight students.  Tommy, of course, was one of the finalists from our school, good ol’ Saint Anastasia’s; being skipped a grade, he was also one of the youngest contestants in the diocese.

He made it, in fact, to the finals in downtown Brooklyn somewhere, in a huge old-fashioned auditorium, with plush seats that pushed down, like in a movie theater.  I was along that day, and the memory of the tension that spelling bee contest day twists my stomach as I type.   

Every time they’d ask a kid to spell something, I’d spell it in my head, too.  I got most of them right (maybe that’s why I love playing “Jeopardy!” to this day, the triumph of the correct answer), and was very proud of my older brother for doing so well and not cracking under the pressure.

After what seemed like years, a lunch break was called.  After lunch, it came down to three finalists.  Unbearable tension in the air in this massive hall, a dark, dank auditorium that looked like it held a thousand, at least.

It was Tommy’s turn. “Spell ‘balalaika,’ a Russian stringed instrument.”

Tommy went, “B-A-L-E--“  and continued, “-L-A-I-K-A.”

Wrong.  He was out.  Should have stayed with the a’s. . . so much for my brother’s moment in the sun for our school.  It was back to being the old “Egghead Agnelli” again. 

Of course, I learned how to spell “balalaika” -- how could I ever forget!  It’s no secret why we were good at spelling in our house: dad would give us 25 cents (equal nowadays to a fw bucks, easy) for correctly spelling stuff like  “Worcestershire” sauce. I remember going to the refrigerator door, taking out the Lea & Perrins bottle, and memorizing it.

I remember the secure feeling of my hand, clutching the quarter. . . And I wondered how Tommy felt, missing that word in the spelling bee.  Did it make him sad?  Did it make him mad?  

He didn’t seem to have any reaction but a mild shrug.  He never spoke about it.  That seemed weird to me but then, boys were different, anyways, how they reacted to things. But with Tommy, really: no affect.

(graduation photo of Tom, 8^th grade -- I'm on the left, and Carrie's on the right -- she's such a cutie!)

5-11-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #12

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

EGGHEAD

Leave it up to kids to know how to twist a name like “Agnelli” into “Egghead.” 

I’d ask my father why were kids so cruel?  This was invariably when I was in the car with him, alone, driving home from dropping grandma off every week (she was a regular visitor to our house, assisting with housecleaning, cooking, and child care for our “poor mother,” as grandma’d affectionately call her).

Wisely, dad didn’t know how to respond, just listened to me as I poured my sad heart out.  When we were growing up in Douglaston, Queens, my brother, sister and I attended the local parochial school, Saint Anastasia’s, grades Kindergarten through 8^th.  It was called a “Grammar School,” I guess because the nuns especially were good at drilling in the rules of grammar and the ol’ 3 R’s: Readin’, ‘Ritin’, ‘Rithmatic.” 

At “St. A’s,” the bully contingents were out in force, and nobody did a blessed thing about it.  The nuns themselves were often bullies. . .

At any rate, the kids called my brother -- then me -- “egghead.”  It was a big put down.  It meant you were smart, strange, a studious kid, a real “grind.”  I guess nowadays we’d be called Geeks, or Nerds.  Since we had little social grace, neither Tommy nor I knew how to handle being put down and called “Egghead Agnelli” every day. 

Anyway.  I hated being a kid and couldn’t wait to grow up.  I wonder if Tommy felt the same?  Then, to add insult to injury, because he was so bright, they skipped him a grade.  That meant that Tommy was even more of an outcast, being way younger than everybody else.  He only had that one friend -- Doug Schneyman -- and so life for Tom was a pretty lonely thing even in childhood. . .

5-09-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #10

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

FRANK TALK

At Tom’s wake -- held in the usual place, Doyle B. Shaffer funeral home, Little Neck, NY -- we met several people who figured into Tom’s everyday life, his mysterious private life.  There were several people from the Phoenix house program who knew Tom, others who battled mental illness their whole lives but were still in the fray, fighting the good fight.  But when you think about it, it’s the only thing they can do.  To give up is to really cease existing in one way or the other. . .

We met one of Tom’s doctors and one of the social workers who were on his “case” in more ways than one.  And I said earlier the wake was “at the usual place” because that’s where our father’s, then our mother’s, then our brother Tom’s, bodies all laid in state for people to come pay “respects.”  Let me ask here and now for them to NOT do anything for me at that godforsaken place. . . don’t know what I want, I just know what I DON’T want. . . 

We also met a tall man, sixty-ish in age, who dressed well.  A gentleman.  And he was indeed a gentle man.  He was Frank Drollinger -- Tom’s (former) friend.  Frank was a writer and editor of the paper for St. Thomas the Apostle Church, The Reporter, where some of Tom’s poems had been published.  He was also one of Tom’s only friends, towards the end.  Something motivated Tom to “cut the cord” and end the friendship, something I’ll ask Carrie about but don’t really understand.

 In an email to me a few weeks after we buried Tom (in a plot next to our mom, as we knew it was available and he didn’t leave any instructions for us, anyway), Frank emailed me back when I sent along the eulogy & obituary I wrote.

“Lauren, Well--it's so good to hear from you. I love your family. I like these remarks very much, and especially the 'coincidence' of Tom and St Thomas the Apostle. And your eulogy is so good, most especially because you let Tom speak for himself. The poems you included were not familiar to me, and they are gems.  I'm grateful on that count alone--Tom used to send me his poems and read them to me on the phone every week for years--and I hadn't seen or heard one for a very long time--a couple of years.  Even the brevity of the eulogy is special. I felt honored that you mentioned me (I do think it was more hope than optimism that lie underneath Tom's daily life). Finally, I feel that you and Carrie pay special honor to Tom as your elder brother. Whatever has been the history of your family, it is truly a family.

Wherever we feel Tom is now, please don't stop praying for him.  God bless, Frank”

5-08-12 Pictures of Tommy - a memoirist’s blog #9

(Right now, I’m focusing on my memoirist work that I’ll call, simply, “Pictures of Tommy” -- all about my psychotic brother and his legacy. If so inclined, please share, and tell me what you think. . . )

PICTURES OF TOMMY WE’D LIKE TO IMAGINE

Our brother, Tom, looking healthy and happy, with a mouthful of teeth.  He is in his mid 50’s, a handsome, tall man of normal weight, maybe with a little potbelly in the middle.  He stands beside his loving wife, a plump, sweetly smiling hippieish looking woman in her 50’s with blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, and two kids, two teenaged girls with goofy smiles.

(This is only imaginary because he lost his teeth, was obese with a gigantic belly, looked very unhealthy, about 20 years older than his chronological age, never had a real romantic relationship to our knowledge.)

Tom playing with a great rockin’ blues band, rockin’ out on his Fender Stratocaster guitar, trading licks in heaven with George Harrison, the former Beatle. 

(Again, highly imaginary because nobody’s ever brought back pictures from heaven: Tom always adored Eric Clapton, the Beatles and THE BLUES, and was always jamming or trying to jam with other musicians.)

Tom in his home office/study, working intently on something musical or literary, his orderly, clean surroundings reflecting accomplishments & productivity.

(His reality was cruelly the opposite: Tom lived and worked in a wretched, filthy apartment, clutter and grime and cockroaches, mice and rats -- “Tiny Livestock” as my husband calls them -- swarming a small one bedroom ground floor apartment in a mid century red brick building in Woodhaven, Queens, New York.  How he lived there, relaxed, wrote so many poems and was able to play music in those surroundings boggles some brains -- like mine.)

Here is a picture that Tom’s friend, Frank, sent to me in an email a few weeks after the funeral.  Frank wrote, “The attached picture reminds me of Tom.  Yes, he has been at least as special to Heaven as he is to us.” 

It’s remarkable to me how much the man in the picture, embraced by Jesus on a throne in heaven, resembles my brother, Tom.  I sure hope he is being embraced in heaven as he lived a hell on earth. . .