Letter 21

February 8, 2017

Dear Jesse,

It was just a little over a year since you had died, March 2015, and I was still living in New Orleans. Your death was breaking me open in a way I couldn't resist and I felt terrified. My life had grown increasingly heavy and my ability to keep feelings and truth stuffed down inside of me had come to a head.

It was my marriage.

This was a confrontation I did not have the emotional strength to bear in addition to accepting the truth of what had been swirling around inside of me. I can remember dropping to my knees in our New Orleans living room one morning after Dylan was at preschool and just sobbing, begging to not have to do go through with it.

A divorce.

It had been quite sometime and the discourse between us behind close doors had grown to a place that was unbearable for me. There was such a severe disconnect between us at the core of who we were as people, much less partners. These dynamics took such a toll on my internal world in addition to losing you and I couldn't keep everything in anymore. I couldn't keep going along pretending.

During this time someone came into my life whose presence woke up parts of me that I had been disowning for quite some time. His presence made me come face-to-face with myself in a way that I couldn't escape.

I couldn't escape myself any longer.

The night things came to a head between Jeremy and I our world as a family of three was forever changed. I knew the road ahead was going to be a hard one as we unraveled our marriage with a then 3 year old while remaining under one roof.

It was March 11, 2015, just three months after my experience with the bald eagle. I was standing in my kitchen in New Orleans trying to wrap my head around everything happening regarding my marriage and life as I had known it.

Did I really have the strength and emotional capacity to go through with this?

I had to just get out of the house. I was terrified and the scared part of me wanted to just ignore my truth and live unconscious again. Honoring my truth would mean change, it would mean stepping out into the unknown. It would mean making really hard decisions with lasting effects. I didn't have a family unit to fall back on. My two best friends lived states away, my mother was dead, you were dead, and my sister was unable to be there for her own self let alone me.

I needed you, I needed you more then ever, Jesse.

I needed another sign. 

I grabbed my jacket and headed outside for a walk. Just before arriving to the end of our driveway I stopped to see if any cars were coming before crossing the road. While stopped I sensed something above me. When I looked up to my left there was a huge vulture on the top of our telephone pole. Its wings were wide open as it starred right down at me.

"Oh-My-God"

Those three words slowly came out of my mouth one after another as I stood there frozen. We had lived in this neighborhood of New Orleans for a year and I had never seen a vulture, not once. I took out my phone to document what was happening so I didn't second guess myself again like before. 

As scared as I was I felt a surge of life energy and a knowing inside of me. A knowing that although your were dead you were with me and showing me you would be with me every step of the way.

"Jesse" I said to myself as I looked right up at the vulture.

I crossed the road and stood on the other side of my street to take in this experience from a different view.

This was the first day the vulture entered my life physically and spiritually. After this experience I devoured everything about them. Come to find out these birds are quite misunderstood as most people associate them with just death or even some sort of bad omen. The more I researched the more I learned. From a spiritual perspective, in short, it is said that when the vulture is working with you it is a time of purification, a time of death and rebirth and a time of new vision. When the vulture comes in as a totem it is a strong message that a higher purpose is at work and any suffering experienced is temporary but necessary for this new birth to come to fruition.

I felt protected and supported in a way I had never felt before. Two weeks later I received the email below from a stranger off the Dear Jesse My Brother Blog:

3/31/15

I lost my brother Jude to suicide the day after Christmas 2014, almost exactly 23 years after we lost our father to suicide. A friend told me she was working with you and she sent me a link to your blog. The day that I decided to finally click on the link to read it, Jude's best friend sent me something that he found on Jude's iPad that Jude had written in February 2014, not long after the second time we had him picked up for suicide watch and ironically, around the same time you lost Jesse. I wanted to share it with you, so here it is.....

"I wish more than anything I ever wished for.. including all the money and weed and land and salt and gold and answers and love and time and freight trains.. that I was a bird. The pain in my heart and the mess in my head are too much for me to bear as a man. All I know is that if I were a bird I would fly high above the trees and live in a thick white cloud. I would sing to my friends back on earth and never have to worry about anyone else knowing who I was or why I live in a cloud and sing beautiful songs to these people down on earth. I would be free to come and go as I please, and I would only take what I need from the earth to get by. I would try my best to eat only the oldest and most useless insects, or berries from a tree with many to spare. I would not flock, nor ever intrude on another birds home. I would soar as high as the heavens and dive into the sea to quench my thirst. I would climb again and let the wind take me away to wherever the wind chooses to go. But I would be free to choose my path with nobody ever telling me where I can or cannot go. I would be content, if not joyous to be a bird floating freely in the sky. I would love everything as it is, because I would love myself. I wish I was a bird."       ~Jude Erny

I have had quite a few "strange" interactions with birds since his death. After reading his note, I can't help but wonder if maybe he's been stopping by to let me know he's okay. I find peace in the thought of it, although I hate that he hurt so badly and that he didn't love himself. I am so sorry for your loss and I hope that you are finding some peace. Even after going through it personally, it's interesting that I still struggle to find the right words.

-Victoria

I couldn't believe what I had just read, Jesse.

I was covered in goosebumps.

These types of synchronicities were happening at an accelerated rate in so many ways. Shortly after I received this email I opened up your hard drive that had all of your photography work in it. There were so many folders and thousands of pictures. One of the folders I stumbled upon was from when you came to stay with me at my farmhouse in New Jersey in 2011. We spent part of our day driving on back country roads together while periodically pulling over so you could photograph my pregnant belly and other surroundings. As I looked at the tiny thumbnails I was drawn to two photographs next to eachother and what seem to be facing one another.

I wasn't prepared for what my eyes would see when I opened the files...

It was a vulture, Jesse.