Prompt: I Begin Again
Anticipating New Beginnings by Aura Brickler
Back in April 2020, my friend Aura Brickler sent me her response to an Isolation Journals prompt—about a new beginning she was anticipating but that hadn’t happened yet: a new beginning as a widow. It was staggeringly beautiful, and it split me wide open.
The first time I met Aura’s husband, Bret Hoekema, was in 2013, in a hospital waiting room in New York; he was there looking into treatment for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The next time, it was on my road trip in 2015, just after he and Aura had moved into a new house in Chicago. Though Bret was still having health issues, they were talking about having a child and turning the study where they’d put me up into a nursery. Only a couple years later, they had a gorgeous baby girl named Evie.
The last time I saw Bret was almost exactly a year ago. On one of my last trips before Covid hit, I traveled to Chicago to watch my partner Jon play in the NBA All-Star Celebrity Game. Bret was the perfect person to invite—I knew he’d bring his extraordinary humor to the weirdness of a celebrity basketball game (big egos, questionable basketball skills).
Bret was then struggling with a post-bone marrow transplant complication called graft-versus-host disease that affected his lungs, but he lugged his oxygen pack to the game, and we settled into our seats for a surreal and hilarious evening. We exchanged bewildered looks after noticing Kim and Kanye across the way, then laughed delightedly at Chance the Rapper’s mom, who was sitting next to us, screaming, “Chance! That’s my boy!”—like a regular old mom at her kid’s little league game.
Bret’s condition worsened in the months that followed. He died on January 6, and there are no words for how immensely I feel the loss. He was a brilliant, sensitive, kind, hilarious human being—he had the prereq for my most beloved people: They can get real, and they can get real funny. Bret brought his humor to everything, even to the dark, raw, ugly experience of illness.
The other day, Aura texted me a photograph of a gorgeous leafy plant. She said when they purchased it—the night before Bret’s transplant—it was a pathetic little thing with about four leaves. Bret decided to name it Transplant (nobody loved a good pun more than he did). Seeing the photo broke my heart and also made me laugh and gave me hope.
Today, we have a prompt from Aura. She’s sharing with us what she wrote last April and asking us to think about how we’ll begin again.
With love,
Suleika
I Begin Again by Aura Brickler
My new beginning has yet to happen.
I don’t know much about it, but I know it will come with a bang. I know it will hurt like hell even though I have braced myself for years. Some days it feels like I sit and wait for it, daydreaming about what it will feel like. It can show up like a slow motion video of a head on collision; as a family comes into focus I realize it is ours. Other times it looks like a storm way off in the distance; a disastrous cloud over an Idaho mountain range, while we’re being spared a few last rays of the sun’s light. When it happens I will scream and cry and whisper to myself, “but you had so much time to prepare.”
I will begin again in a suffocating state of mourning. I will smile at others and assure them that I am okay. I will agree that he’s better off not suffering, that he is no longer laboring to find each and every single breath. I will hope with all of my might that there is an afterlife, one that has offered him eternal peace after so much pain. I will begin again wanting more than ever to believe in the narrative of heaven because what else do you tell your young child about where her father goes when his body dies? I will likely tell her that he lives among the stars now, always hovering over her, and when the night sky is the darkest, she’ll see him the most.
I will begin again as someone with a lot of regrets. The idea of living every day as if it is the last fades after 3206 days of trying hard to do so. Cancer has a way of digging in and dragging along. It grabs you by your weaknesses and makes you beg for an ounce of strength. It gnaws at the foundation of your collective hopes and dreams, allowing despair to fill in the cracks. I will begin again and learn how to forgive.
I will begin again as a narrator, telling stories to keep him close to us. Telling tall tales that protect our daughter from the parts of the story that are too painful. I imagine being left in a fog of uncertainty, fear, and confusion. When the fog begins to lift, I will begin again as grateful—for what we had and what, of him, I still have. I will begin each day like I do now, with a cup of coffee. I will begin again as a widow.
Your prompt for this week:
Have you been bracing yourself for a new beginning? Perhaps one that is daunting yet inevitable, or maybe one that you've been hoping for and dreaming about. What will it take for you to get there? Who will be with you? What will it feel like when you get to the other side?
If you’d like, use the refrain, “I will begin again as…”
About Aura and Bret
Aura Brickler and Bret Hoekema were married in 2010. Six months later Bret was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. After nearly a decade of unrelenting cancer and treatment-related complications, Bret took his last labored breath on January 6, 2021. With the help of modern medicine, Aura and Bret were able to welcome their daughter, Evie Maeve, into the world in 2017. She is a radiant lightbeam, by far their best accomplishment. Aura and Evie live in Chicago with their dog, lovingly named Hodge Hoekema. Aura is a school social worker and is hoping to pursue caregiver support work when the time is right. They are surrounded by the best friends and family anyone could ask for.
Read Bret’s Blog
Throughout his treatment, Bret kept a blog. His writings offer a raw, honest, and often humorous glimpse into his decade of living life in spite of cancer. You can read them at hoechemo.com.
Be the Match
Saving a life starts with a simple cheek swab! Visit Be the Match today to learn more about joining the bone marrow registry. You could be someone's cure.