WAR GAMES

Call it the work of a hopelessly depressive mind; But I like to think of worst case scenarios. Not the somewhat humorous "zombie apocalypse" kind that most people will half heartedly joke about; But the really plausible disasters that effect all of us at some point in our lives. Death. Disease. Loss. Don't get me wrong - the levels to which I think about these things DO get into the absurdly dramatic. Such as; IF the Chinese hacked and shut down the US power grid? I have been compiling my own William the Conqueror style "doomsday book" of resources in my mind for years in the case of something to that level of fucked. But the more common "war game" (as I like to think of it) that I play in my mind usually has to do with the closer to home human disasters that wait to consume us all at some point. Like the loss of loved ones.

This morning I was fretting over my little brother. My brother and I plus another friend are all flat mates. My brother didn't come home last night. Which isn't totally abnormal for him - he crashes at friend's houses rather often. For a while he joked about touring the country just couch surfing with various people he knew. But as a person who generally worries, and as an avid worst case scenario thinker - My mind can't help but go some place dark. Of course it doesn't help that when HIS alarms went off this morning (which are so loud I can hear them through the walls) the station that he has it turned to was reporting on a traffic crash in the suburb he works in during the early hours of the morning last night (ie - bar time). 3 people dead in a one car auto wreck. I called him and of course my worry only mounts when it goes straight to voice mail. So I sit around a fair chunk of the morning nursing my coffee and a mountain of worry - and I play a war game.

IF it was him - how would things progress? This is the fundamental question I start with. I take comfort in knowing that the most likely way I would be informed would be by police coming to the door (standard issue notifying the next of kin/ checking the victims address on the identification present on the body). And it is damn near 9:30 am - and no cops have been by. Logical deduction states that the probability that it was my brother has gone down dramatically - and so does my anxiety. Then it is thinking about all the horrible other things. Who would have been in the car with him? Which of his friends family's would my family always have bad blood with? I would assume HE was driving (his car carries more people than most his friends). So the burden of who killed who essentially would rest on my family. If you have ever known some one to die in a drunk driving one car accident (as my family has) it doesn't matter how tight of friends the driver was to your dead loved one; that friend is forever more their killer in your mind. Being that we are from a small town, and the likely fellow victims (the friends that would have most likely died too) are ALSO from the same small town - that is a very thick social mire to have to navigate. Especially for my mother who still lives there (along with those other kids parents).

Then you get to contacting YOUR family. The crying. The phone calls. It's hideous to think about - but I make myself do this all of the time with everyone I love. Mostly so it doesn't seem so horrible that I can't handle it when it does some day occur. With my brother there would be the question of how to handle his final remains. He is so young, only 24. Far too young to have ever worried enough to have put his wishes in writing. Cremation? Burial? If Burial where? Here in Madison? Back home? He has so little love for our home town I could never imagine him wanting to be entombed there forever. So cremation it would most likely be. That way our mother and father (who are divorced and live hundreds of miles apart) don't have to bicker about travel in regards to respects. He also could be with ALL of his friends then. Just divvy the ashes up in wee little urns. He could be everywhere. But then there are still questions about a wake. Where to have it? Madison and make all his friends in our home town and in Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago, (as well as our mother and father) come here? Or do I rent a hearse and just drive him from city to city? He is a musician - he always wanted to go on tour. How much would it cost to get Alkaline Trio (his favorite band) to play a memorial gig? A funerary tour. 3 cities. Would they DO that?

Then there is the after. The depression. The probate handling of all outstanding debts and the diving up of what little my brother owns. Seeing one of my mother's worst fears realized - and being hundreds of miles away and not able to help her. To being locked into a lease with one of his best friends - and know that we have to find a room mate to be able to make rent. My mind goes through ALL of this in detail in about 20 minutes. I call my brother again. He picks up. Obviously groggy. As though this call is finally the call that rousted his slumber. He is at his friends house. Just as I had hoped. My worry evaporates. I take a little bit of comfort in knowing I have a little more of a plan in the case of the worst of possible outcomes. But I am overwhelmingly grateful that I don't have to USE that plan. Some other family has to do that now; And my heart goes out to them.