“Unraveling the Mystery: How Shack Man is Healing a Hidden Crisis in Our Communities”
Added on March 1, 2025 inASTROLOGY CARDS
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Catch up here – Shack Man
Chapter Fifteen – The Memorial
It was going to be dicey, bringing up the memorial. Shack had never been there. His brother’s status was a raw thing. It was a tender situation. They had no resolution. I had no experience with anything like this. I’d never known anyone at any depth with a family member who was MIA, never mind a brother.
We’d talked about his brother many times, but only briefly. Shack’s feelings about his brother were being conveyed to me in typical Shack fashion. The tide would come in on this and then roll back out, it’s return, inevitable. He would touch on it, move on, touch on it again. I didn’t mind this. I liked his rhythms.
“This is a song that makes me think of my brother.”
Then we would listen. Twice. Three times.
Or on another day, “My brother had this album. I have all the albums he did now…” Like that.
So many years had passed and this was still quite fresh from what I could tell. Honestly, it was a gaping wound we walked around.
Shack felt his brother could be alive. He thought the phone could ring with the news at any time. I thought this not likely, but what the hell do I know? Nothing.
When he brought it up, I would listen, carefully. I was trying to learn. To glean how I may help what was clearly a sensitive situation. I knew each year he and his brother would go home, and find themselves unable to visit the memorial. The rest of his family had been.
Shack confessed to having a huge amount of guilt over this. He felt it was a shortcoming. Something flawed about him. I said what I could about that, and wished for peace and relief from the misplaced guilt, but I never got the impression it was close at hand.
This was a story unfolding, and had we not been going to, DC, I would have left it lie and let him unfold it in his own time. As it was, I was afraid with the trip, having made the rounds of his entire family, we’d fly home, his brother looming large, by his omission.
I imagined a meltdown on the plane home. Immense sadness. This was my fear, so I decided to ask, after we had our pancakes.
I mean he kept coming up in conversation and now I was dreaming him again. The memorial is right there. Why not meet everyone, break through the fear and come home, triumphant?
Oh! I also did not like the heartbreaking dreams. I’d mentioned them to, Shack, but I’d not gone into it. Let me say right here, I am not a psychic and I have no access to dead people. This was a unique experience for me, but it was crystalline.
The brother was hammering me. DO IT. It was on the verge of bullying, but, I could understand.
What if you were dead, twenty years, and you could see your little brothers, still suffering with no end in sight?
I was wrapping up three years of therapy at the time and I knew all about, puking it up. The older brother was a like the Hydra. We just had to get this up and out, exposed to the light and air, so he could rest in peace and his brothers could live in peace.
“Um… Shack. Let’s go see your brother.”
“What?”
“Let’s go see your brother’s name. Let’s go to the memorial.”
Unsurprisingly, he was shocked. He waited to answer, and I was glad. I didn’t want him to babble and regret it. I knew how serious this was, even if I didn’t understand it. All the brother wanted me to do, is something. Poke, prod, initiate? Something like that.
So I did it. I got involved and I wanted him to think about it. Or just know, he could
Catch up here – Shack Man
Chapter Fifteen – The Memorial
It was going to be dicey, bringing up the memorial. Shack had never been there. His brother’s status was a raw thing. It was a tender situation. They had no resolution. I had no experience with anything like this. I’d never known anyone at any depth with a family member who was MIA, never mind a brother.
We’d talked about his brother many times, but only briefly. Shack’s feelings about his brother were being conveyed to me in typical Shack fashion. The tide would come in on this and then roll back out, it’s return, inevitable. He would touch on it, move on, touch on it again. I didn’t mind this. I liked his rhythms.
“This is a song that makes me think of my brother.”
Then we would listen. Twice. Three times.
Or on another day, “My brother had this album. I have all the albums he did now…” Like that.
So many years had passed and this was still quite fresh from what I could tell. Honestly, it was a gaping wound we walked around.
Shack felt his brother could be alive. He thought the phone could ring with the news at any time. I thought this not likely, but what the hell do I know? Nothing.
When he brought it up, I would listen, carefully. I was trying to learn. To glean how I may help what was clearly a sensitive situation. I knew each year he and his brother would go home, and find themselves unable to visit the memorial. The rest of his family had been.
Shack confessed to having a huge amount of guilt over this. He felt it was a shortcoming. Something flawed about him. I said what I could about that, and wished for peace and relief from the misplaced guilt, but I never got the impression it was close at hand.
This was a story unfolding, and had we not been going to, DC, I would have left it lie and let him unfold it in his own time. As it was, I was afraid with the trip, having made the rounds of his entire family, we’d fly home, his brother looming large, by his omission.
I imagined a meltdown on the plane home. Immense sadness. This was my fear, so I decided to ask, after we had our pancakes.
I mean he kept coming up in conversation and now I was dreaming him again. The memorial is right there. Why not meet everyone, break through the fear and come home, triumphant?
Oh! I also did not like the heartbreaking dreams. I’d mentioned them to, Shack, but I’d not gone into it. Let me say right here, I am not a psychic and I have no access to dead people. This was a unique experience for me, but it was crystalline.
The brother was hammering me. DO IT. It was on the verge of bullying, but, I could understand.
What if you were dead, twenty years, and you could see your little brothers, still suffering with no end in sight?
I was wrapping up three years of therapy at the time and I knew all about, puking it up. The older brother was a like the Hydra. We just had to get this up and out, exposed to the light and air, so he could rest in peace and his brothers could live in peace.
“Um… Shack. Let’s go see your brother.”
“What?”
“Let’s go see your brother’s name. Let’s go to the memorial.”
Unsurprisingly, he was shocked. He waited to answer, and I was glad. I didn’t want him to babble and regret it. I knew how serious this was, even if I didn’t understand it. All the brother wanted me to do, is something. Poke, prod, initiate? Something like that.
So I did it. I got involved and I wanted him to think about it. Or just know, he could think about it. We could possibly, go.
“You’d go there with me?”
“Yes, of course. I want to go there with you. I want you to go there.”
He looked kind of slapped. I felt bad, but I was still glad I asked. I didn’t think it was going to be some little thing. I had a pretty good idea the enormity of what I was doing.
He didn’t know what to say. His face was moving in a way that is not voluntary. Damn it!
He waited a long time to answer. A very long time. I stayed quiet and it wasn’t easy.
“Can my brother come with us? I think he may want to go.”
“Of course. We can all go. Definitely he can come with us. Ask him. You guys talk. You decide.”
“We’ve never been.”
“I know.”
He knows I know. “I don’t know if we can do it, Elsa. We’ve never been able to go there.”
“We can go. If you want to, we can. It’ll be okay. It may not be as bad as you worry. It may feel good to see his name.”
“I’ve thought of that. I know that. A lot of people say that. He looked like he was going to cry.
This made me want to cry but I didn’t. Not on his dime. I breathed or I held my breath. I can’t remember which. Whatever it took to keep some composure. This was brutal for him. I could see it and, I could feel it, but I had to press. I thought it was the compassionate thing to do. This was my instinct and I sure hoped my instinct was working.
“Ask your brother. Tell him we’re thinking about going and ask him if he wants to come.”
He was quiet a long time. Shaking his head. Maybe even mumbling, I don’t know. I wanted to curse the dead brother in my head, but managed to just wait. I didn’t regret bringing it up. I was going to follow this through and go the long haul with him. I didn’t think this could or should stay the way it was.
“I’ll call my brother. I’ll ask him. It makes a lot of sense. You’re going to meet everyone else. Thanks for thinking of this, Elsa. Thanks for thinking of me and my brother. I mean my brothers.”
I tell him I love him. He knows that.
Next day. “Brrrrrinnnnng! Brinnnnnng!
We’re going! My heart soars.
I personally thought the wall was magic, purely through my imagination. This was from the images I’d seen. I sure hoped so. It damned well better be. If I was wrong, I would hurt two people I love, for my stupidity. Yes, I loved Shack’s brother, too, at this point. Hard not to!
I had the idea the memorial was a place of transcendence. I imagined it possible for someone to be spontaneously healed there, even.
I did not expect that in this case. I knew better, but I thought it would open the door and/or start the ball rolling. A slow ball, but that’s okay. This was so acute for him that any shift would be a positive.
Is this right? It better be.
I wanted all the brothers to be okay, and I also did not want to close my eyes at night and see planes going down in the jungle. I could hear the plane noises in my dreams and it was deeply disturbing. The kind of dream, when you wake up, you sit up and you realize you’d best get out of bed, taking no chances of falling back asleep. So I wanted him to puke it up. But I also knew, this is easy to say when you’re not the one who has to do the puking.
Mother wigging, sister bitching? I didn’t care about any of that. Small potatoes. This thing with his brother had to be dislodged. And oh yeah. I better be right.
He was emotional on the phone. “Unless something comes up and we just can’t do it. You’d understand that, wouldn’t you, Elsa? If me or my brother couldn’t go there? If one of us can’t go, then we are going to put it off. When we go, we want to go together.”
“Oh yeah! I understand. We’ll only go if both of you want to. We’ll see how you feel when we get there. Do you want to go alone with your brother?” I asked. “That’d be okay with me.”
“No. We’d never make it. We never have. Do you know how many times we said we were going? Never mind. You’ll have to help us. We need to go there. We know it. We need help though. We’d appreciate it. You’re going to help us, right?”
“I am.”
“Okay. That’s what I told my brother. He thanks you too. He thinks it’s a good idea, if you come with us. He thinks we may make it after all this time and that it would be good. It’s about time. We’ve put it off long enough. I gotta go. See you after work.”
Click.
No more talk. We call a real estate agent. I put my condo on the market and got a full price offer within a week. I started selling furniture. I had just spent $1600 on a stereo. It went out the door for $500. Who needs it?
We started looking for our new home, and found what we wanted right away. We were on a roll.
It was a mountain house on the side of the hill, facing south. It had a sunny deck across the whole front & huge windows. Such a change from the shack which offered, 365 days a year, in the shade.
There was even a shrine for Shack Man’s stereo, in the form of a raised tile hearth in the living room, intended to accommodate a wood stove. We could see ourselves there. It was a gorgeous place. We were amazed what we could afford when we pooled our resources. We made an offer on the house. It was accepted within an hour.
Both the sale and purchase deals were in process. We were delirious, we were unstoppable, and we were going, East, in about a week.
Kay was pouting. She’d thrown the big leg of the Taurus off her for the last time and she didn’t like that I was off the market. She was on her own.
“Damn that damn Shack Man, you’re going to marry him aren’t you?”
“Yeah, I am. I’m going to marry him.”
Chapter Sixteen – The Ring
“Are you ready to talk about your ring? He asked.
I blush. I gush. I’m a girl. “Yes, I am.”
“Do you like rubies?” he asks.
Turns out there’s an heirloom ring. He says the ring is awful; the stone is awesome. His mother wants to give it to us. “She’s been saving it for my wife. If I ever found one,” he adds, beaming. “Well I did. I found you and the ring is yours if you want it.” He’s ecstatic. I think I’m living in a dream.
“I want to know what you think about it. It’s a really nice stone. If I had to buy it, I couldn’t afford it. Well I could afford it, but I’d be paying for a very long time. It’s huge, Elsa. It’s beautiful, and I’m sure it would look great on you. I think you’d really like it, but it’s not a normal stone for a wedding ring and so I wanted to ask you about it first.”
“Red, right?” Big smile. I love, red.
He laughs. “Yeah. Red. Dark red. I’m hoping when I give you your ring, you’ll wear it for the rest of your life so I want you to be really happy with it. And I don’t know. Maybe you want a diamond.”
“Normal stone for a wedding ring? I’m marrying a Shack Man,” I said.
“That’s true. But I’m still going to ask you. When I get the ring together. I’m going to do this right.” He smiles. “So do you want it? A ruby? I don’t like the ring. It’s ugly. We can pick it up when we go east. I want to take the stone to a jeweler and talk to them. I’ve been working on a design. I have some sketches. I want to get something made for you. What do you think? Can I design your ring?” He laughs. “I promise it won’t be a shack ring.”
“Are you kidding me?” I was embarrassed. “I want whatever you figure out. Your taste is way better than mine. Your taste in women is excellent,” I add, with a big smile.
“You’re right. I do have good taste. Okay. I’m gonna take care of this. I’m not going to ask you anything else about it until I am ready, and then I am going to propose to you. I want it to be a surprise. I wish the whole thing could have been a surprise but I was afraid you may have wanted a diamond…”
Shack Man wants a shack ring. Something unconventional. He has a pretty good idea what and he’s surprised at himself. He’s never worn a ring and didn’t think he ever would, married or otherwise, but now he wants one. He doesn’t want anything too wedding-ish though. He wants a blue stone, I don’t remember its name, but we look high and low and inquire here and there, until we find his ring. We didn’t find a ring, we found the ring.
“I’m glad your mother isn’t wigging.”
“No, she’s not. She’s doing good. It’s amazing. I guess she’s decided that I’m old enough to pick a wife after all.” He laughs. “My sister is wigging though.”
“Why?”
“She wants that ruby.” He laughs. “She thinks my mother should give it to her.”
I don’t laugh. That doesn’t sound good, does it?
To be continued.
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