Sibling Reflections: Frankie

 

 

 

 

 Among many things, Felix was born to be a big brother. When Jack was a baby, he would only go to Felix. Baby Jack was attached to 16 year old Felix by the hip. When my mom would try to take Jack from Felix he would cry until he was returned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even though Felix was away at college when my youngest brother Luke was born he still made time to teach him how to ride a bike, play tag- even at night, and give him piggy back rides.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a kid I was nothing but a ball of energy, jumping around, off the walls, and driving everyone crazy. It was easy to write me off as just a bad kid, a nuisance. There was one person that refused to do so and that was Felix. At school and at home nobody knew how to deal with my energy. On summer days you could see Felix and me sitting on the swings as he taught me how to knit. Here was the kid that everyone was afraid to try and control and with just his gentle nature Felix had me at full attention directing my energy into a constructive and creative outlet. This was a task that came so naturally to Felix but was something teachers, my other siblings, relatives, and even friends could not achieve. While others would make me feel like I was just a bad kid and a burden, with Felix I felt important and loved.

 

 

 

Not only this but Felix's creativity and nurturing aura translated into acts of brotherly love that I will remember for the rest of my life. I recall a moment where Felix led me to the window facing our shed as we wore our matching red bracelets. He said he wanted to show me something. He held my hand and asked me to look at the shed counting down from 10. Together we counted down and the moment we hit 1 a stampede of bunnies hopped out from under the shed. An amazing feeling washed over me as if I was witnessing magic. As far as I was concerned, I was witnessing magic. I think back to that instance knowing he must have put so much thought into creating that moment for me. I now know this could have only been achieved by enlisting the help of our next door neighbor and asking him to knock on the shed once our countdown was complete, drawing the bunnies out. I find comfort in remembering this moment and how Felix always went out of his way to show how much he cared in a special and unique way. Whenever I see bunnies I am taken back to that feeling of wonder, I even got a tattoo of a bunny because of how deeply I was affected by what Felix did for me that day and now whenever I see a bunny I will know that he is there.

 

 

The things Felix instilled in me are things that I will always carry with me forever and that is why I will always have my big brother there with me. He taught me what it means to be a big brother and now it's up to me to be the best big brother I can be.

Friendship

Felix was my next door neighbor on Walden Street in Concord. He would always knock on my door and ask my Mom if I wanted to come out and play. We would build gnome and fairy houses out of the willow branches and moss in our backyards until it was too dark to see, checking them daily for wear from our mystical tenants. Aside from being an excellent co-landlord for magical creatures, Felix personally read me my induction letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, British accent and all. I still have the ceramic snow owl dish he gave me from his Mom's ceramic shop. On purging days I would always raid their wares to see what other treasures I might find. I watched Pirates of Penzance and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for the first time in his kitchen. We would communicate through knocks on the walls from time to time until we finally upgraded to walky-talkies. My childhood wouldn't have been the same without his friendship and some of these fond memories I'm fortunate to keep.



Fairyhouse flower arrangement made by Sarah Brow-Hill and Jill Brow in honor of Felix

Comfort and Companionship

Felix and Walter doing face masks at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

Felix didn't get too many breaks in his fight with Mesothelioma. He spent Christmas in the hospital last year, spent his favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, having emergency surgery to drain fluid from around his heart, and he passed before he would experience another Christmas or New Year's. But he was sent the gift of companionship in his friend Walter just a week before Thanksgiving. Walter was with him almost everyday for 3 weeks in 2 hospitals for the last weeks of his life. In the same calm manner as Felix, he seemed to sense what he needed and provided it without Felix asking. Walter and Felix took turns reading from Cloud Atlas, a book that explores themes of karma and rebirth through the lives of people meeting again and again throughout time, crossing paths like figure skaters. They never did get to finish reading the book, but this quote summarizes the beliefs held in the novel :

Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future. I believe there is another world waiting for us, a better one. And I'll be waiting for you there.  

Walter was sent to Felix for comfort and companionship, and to Felix's siblings for the same reason

Reflections in Walden Pond: Felix's Last Year

Felix was diagnosed with Biphasic Pleural Mesothelioma on December 20, 2017 at 28 years old. He chose to learn the results of the pathology testing that gave him his diagnosis by himself. He gave no indication about what he was about to tell me prior to me getting to the hospital, or even as he told me. He remained calm and centered. I believe his exact words were that he didn't have the "most amazing news." He never cried.

He remained hopeful and grateful throughout his treatment, thanking doctors and nurses no matter what painful or invasive treatment they had just inflicted on him. Over the course of a year he had 5 surgeries, 5 weeks of radiation, 6 cycles of chemotherapy, 6 months of weekly clinical trial drug injections, and a total of 8 weeks stay in 4 different hospitals.

He never let on that he was scared even when he was diagnosed with Stage III and, a month later, Stage IV terminal cancer. He never expressed how badly he felt no matter how sick, uncomfortable, embarrassed, or in pain he was. He never looked as sick as he was even as he was rushed to the hospital by ambulance or wheeled into the ICU for the last time.

He fought until the very end and he always thought he could beat it. He fought harder when he found out that his birthday was Mesothelioma Awareness Day. We thought it meant that he was going to be the one to find a cure. Maybe he still will be; he was proud of contributing in many ways to Mesothelioma research. I will continue this fight on his behalf.

No Wonder I is the song that Felix was listening to on a continuous loop the day he got his diagnosis at New York Presbyterian Hospital in NYC that had him so calm and reflective. As you listen to it now, think of all that embodied Felix.

 

 

I Know You Love Me

Going through Felix's journals after his death Eli found the following entry written years before his cancer diagnosis. It is written exactly as it appears in his journal. It was read by Eli at his funeral as a glimpse into Felix's thoughts on death and what may exist afterwards.

I Know You Love Me

 

On the train back to NY from Charleston

I glanced out the window and saw

An old chimney in the middle of a field

With a group of matching headstones

Around the hearth

 

You struggle with the word "Love" and

What it means to you

 

I don't know

I feel it

 

Maybe too much                                   Sometimes

 

As soon as I had looked, the burial

ground was speeding away out of view

 

But I can see it in my mind in vivid

detail

The shadows of the headstones

falling across the space that once

held the warmth of

what had been home

 

Are we buried next to the ones we love

as a monument of that love?

Can I love in death?                       I want to

 

When I Pass, look me in the eyes and

Say

 

                                         "I know you love me"



Felix's Funeral December 22, 2018

Ingathering Music


Invocation: from No Death, No Fear by Thich Nhat Hahn

This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born and I have never died. Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies All manifests from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.

Opening Words by Rev. Ellen Rowse Spero

Reading: "I Know You Love Me"
                  by Felix Brow-Westbrook
Reader: Eli Denby Wood

Song: "Chimes"
Composed and performed by Eli Denby Wood

Eli performing Chimes

Prayer


Reflections in Walden Pond: Felix's Last Year
written by Elizabeth Parise

Song: "No Wonder I"
           Lake w/m by Ashley Ericksson and Ell Moore



Fairyland: Friendship and Family 

Comfort and Companionship
written by Elizabeth Parise

Friendship
by Tyler Brice

Sibling Reflections:   

Frankie

Lillian

Rebekah

Song: "Vincent"
           Don McLean



Responsive Litany: "We Remember Him"
                                 Adapted from Roland B. Gittelsohn



Off to Massachusetts: Felix Comes Home
written by Elizabeth Parise

In Concord Felix found home. He blossomed artistically and in life. He fell in love with art, architecture, and history. He became an avid reader and thinker. And he made some of the strongest and most enduring friendships.

Reading: Henry David Thoreau
Reader: David H. Brow

On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living- that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world

Song: "Solsbury Hill"
           Peter Gabriel



Closing Blessing: from To Bless the Space Between Us
                             John O'Donohue

Recessional Music

Ceremonial walk to Forefathers Cemetery for Interment

Followed by a Ceremony at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery

Walking to Forefathers for interment. This was a special honor because it is rarely done anymore but was originally how funerals and burials were done

Ballet is for the Boys

There’s a boy I know, a boy close to me. He loves video games and watching cartoons. He loves to wrestle and play different sports in the yard. He collects coins and is fascinated by weaponry. In many ways he’s a typical American, elementary school aged boy. But this boy also takes ballet.

 

This boy spent last year at The School of American Ballet (SAB) at Lincoln Center in NYC. SAB is the training school for New York City Ballet (NYCB), and is considered the best ballet school in the country. Founded by George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein in 1934, the school faculty is primarily made up of former NYCB dancers, most of whom also studied at SAB.

 

 

At SAB, this boy is far from being the only boy there. SAB has a tuition-free program for boys up until the Intermediate level. There are boys only classes too. At SAB, it is comfortable to be a boy in ballet class. At Lincoln Center it is common to see girls and boys dancing by the fountains, or stretching in the cafeteria shared by Juilliard, or practicing on the 5^th floor of the Samuel B. and David Rose Building where the SAB studios are.

This boy even feels comfortable talking about ballet all the way to Penn Station where he boards an LIRR train back to his home on Long Island. But once the train starts to chug out of the station, all talk of SAB and ballet stop.

 

 

He even has brothers who have taken ballet. He will talk about it with them, but he lives in fear that his friends will find out his secret. He says his friends wouldn’t understand, and that they’ll make fun of him. He believes that if his friends find out, they’ll never talk to him again.

 

I honestly don’t know if his fears are founded or not. I’d like to believe that he’s wrong and that his friends wouldn’t care, or even think it’s cool. I hold out hope that he wouldn’t get teased or bullied at school. But the fact is that there is a stigma about boys dancing, especially ballet.

In talking to elementary and middle school aged kids, it seems that ballet is associated with very young girls. For them, it conjures up images of 2 year old girls dancing in sparkly pink tutus. So, not only is there a misconception that only girls dance, but there is also the misconception that ballet is so easy that only toddlers do it.

In America boys are drawn to sports as the epitome of masculine activity. I wonder if the attitude about boys and ballet would be different if there was a greater understanding of how athletic it is. Some wise athletes have figured this out and have taken ballet as a way to improve their chosen sport. Action film star and martial artist Jean-Claude Van Damme took ballet for 5 years starting at age 16 to help his sport. Professional basketball player Michael Beasley took up ballet as a way to transform his body and his game.

 

 

But no other sport has had more of its athletes drawn to ballet as football. I remember seeing NFL Hall of Fame football player Lynn Swann showing his ballet skills on an episode of Mister Rodgers Neighborhood back in the 1970’s. More recently, football players Herschel Walker, Willie Gault, Donovin Darius, and Steve McLendon have followed in Lynn Swann’s ballet footsteps. The Dallas Cowboys even installed ballet barres outside the locker room.








I wonder what it would take to encourage more boys to try ballet. I wonder how to dissolve the misconceptions surrounding ballet. The first step is to think about how male dancers first became inspired to dance. For some it was tagging along with a sister to ballet class, but finding out they really loved it. For others, it was seeing a ballet performance such as The Nutcracker. Others may have been lured by a tuition free ballet program like the one at SAB. It may be the comfort of boys only classes, or the thrill of being one of the only guys in a sea of beautiful girls. It may even be at the urging of a sports coach.

We need boys in ballet. And we need professional male ballet dancers.  I challenge schools to offer programs in dance, even if it is just a 1 hour assembly. I hope that coaches encourage, or even require, boys to take ballet to improve their skills. I encourage dance studios to be proactive in wooing boys to their studios. I implore parents to offer their boys a chance to dance. And I dare, no, I double dare, boys of all ages to try just 1 class in ballet.