NOT JUST A WINE

Content warning: grief, loss

I think it’s going to be difficult tonight. Contemplating the evening ahead, I’m wondering if I’ve processed my younger brother’s untimely and violent death, to quite the extent I tell myself I have.

My other brother (the middle one originally, I’ll call him D here) and I are going to have dinner with our little brother, J’s oldest friend and lifetime partner in crime. He is possibly the only person in the world who knew my brother better than I did. I know he misses him just as keenly, and that he too feels his grief is a work in progress.

We’ll have a curry and I’m sure we’ll catch up on each other’s families and talk about skiing and rugby and all the things you talk about when you haven’t seen each other for a while.

And we’ll drink wine.

We’ll drink wine grown in the vineyards round J’s house, made in the winery that was constructed while he lived there, by the winemaker who became his friend and to whom he eventually sold his house. We always drank it when we visited him there. When we eventually get down to Spain to go through the lifetime of accumulated possessions J left stored in his garage, we’ll have to decide what to do with a signed copy of the original artwork for the label.

My eldest son, who is J’s godson, has it tattooed on his upper arm in memory of his godfather.

This wine has somehow come to embody our collective memory of J. I can see it being brought out at family events and Christmases in years to come. So, when his best friend and soul-mate opens a magnum given to him by J before he died, as he has promised to do this evening, I suspect my brother’s presence to be palpable, and to draw out what is left of the unprocessed emotions and loss.

The wine itself is a big Spanish red from the relatively uncelebrated Jumilla region, inland from Alicante. It’s described by the winemaker as beautifully balanced with a smoky touch and nice soft acidity on a long finish.

For tonight though, this wine will be show different characteristics.

It will be raw, and bitter, with harsh, angry notes and a sad finish.

The emotion of all this frightens me a bit, and it comes at the start of week when I need to be on my game, calm and assured. A week that calls for something nice to eat, a bit of TV and a sleeping pill.  Not for gut-wrenching sadness. Even shared gut-wrenching sadness.

I suspect though that, as the food and the wine goes down, we’ll swap stories of J and, through that, get to the wonderful, joyous, crazy memories he left us all with. We’ll laugh at the outrageous things he did, at his spontaneous acts of mischief or generosity or flamboyance. We’ll share our love for him.

Perhaps we will find a measure of catharsis in this.

I don’t want to feel that I am caging my emotions tonight, or in the work week to come. I’ve spent a long time learning that I no longer need to do that, and that it can even be harmful. But, wherever we all get to in our sharing of memories and loss, I have two hours on my own in the car tomorrow. I want to use the time, not to burry the emotions that will have been stirred up, but to find some of the calm assurance I know I still possess, and plaster that on top of them for a day or two, until I’m ready to return to my brother.

I think I can manage that.