Originally posted to my Facebook on August 9, 2026
When I returned home from my first year of college, Max was eight years old. It felt like the family had moved on without me. Dinner table conversations now revolved around what was happening for those around the table . . . or those who'd been there for the past nine months. Nikki had been away at Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) and I'd been away at EAC. I felt out of step in many ways, and I wasn't aware I was suffering from some type of depression.
Fast forward another eight years. I came home to visit. My (then-)husband and I were living in Tucson with our four year old son. The church in my parents ward (neighborhood congregation) had planned a camp out at the church mountain camp located in Pine/Strawberry AZ. So, I went with my (nuclear) family and my son. That was the last time I interacted with my brother while he was living.
I'm so grateful my son got to know his uncle, just a little bit. I don't know how much Kameron remembers Max now, or whether he has any distinct memories (not prompted by photos). But they at least met.
I found out I was pregnant with Christopher only days or weeks before Max died. So here was yet another set of family members passing in the spiritual 'airport' (in my mind); one on his way in, another on his way out. The older I get, the more I recognize how loss affects me. Even with all the spiritual or religious training about where spirits go after they die, etc., something is different that doesn't register until later. And it isn't limited to people dying - loss in general is just incredibly . . . emotionally paralyzing.
Flashback to my first semester at college. For this first time in my life, I was experiencing staying up really late, on a regular basis. So, I was moderately sleep deprived. The dorm residents ate in the cafeteria, so the food was different. I was with my peers constantly, so there was no being alone or decompressing in a separate safe space (like home). I'd go to the library in the evenings, ostensibly to study. There I discovered the old college yearbooks. I'd sit and look at pictures of my grandmothers and great uncles and aunts. The hair and clothing styles brought back memories of their stories I'd heard and read. And later, I'd venture to the cemeteries in Thatcher and Pima, to find the resting places of my great grandparents and those further back. Eventually, Thatcher (or the Gila Valley in general) came to feel more like home than Mesa.
After Max passed, I had a dream we (the siblings) were all sitting in what we used to refer to as the green room. It had mint green metal blinds in the window (sorry, I think in pictures). We were sitting on the floor in a circle, in my dream. And suddenly Max was there, except only I could see him. He was laughing (as he spent lots of time doing when he was alive - in my memory). I kept trying to figure out why no one else was surprised to see him. And he told me, 'they can't see me, only you can.' In my dream, I said to them, "Max is sitting right there", and pointed to where he was. But they all looked at me oddly. I was a little sad, in my dream. I was so happy to see him, and so incredibly surprised; but sad that no one else knew he was there, just listening the whole time . . .sort of participating in the conversation, silently - with only facial expressions, only I could see.
It served as a further 'nail in the coffin' that I wasn't in my right mind, when I told my siblings about my dream(s). I think some of them were even a little irritated. We hear so many stories in church about people having dreams and visions, even visitations, in response to the death of a loved one, or in time of need. My family couldn't have known (at the time), I'd spent much of the previous year in my alternate, family history reality - studying the life of our 3x-great grandfather, Alexander McRae. I guess its a place I go when I simply can't deal with my present condition. Life gets so desperate (for hope and answers) that I shut down connection to difficult emotions and explore someone else's.
I had a dream of Max standing with Joseph (Alexander's son), and Alexander. They appeared to be in some type of classroom or library. One of them had their foot resting on the seat of a wooden chair, leaning in to the conversation. I was surprised how much Joseph and Alexander looked alike - almost like brothers, though they are father and son. I don't know whether at that point I'd seen a picture of Alexander in his youth - only the picture we had in our genealogy book when Alexander was old, with white hair and a beard, and Joseph is middle aged.
I liked the idea of Max getting his questions answered, and being able to have deep conversations with these very experienced men. Max used to think and express himself in such complex (and complicated) ways. I was certain they would have the time to get at the root of what was concerning him, and be able to explain answers in a way that made sense to him, and got at the root of his understanding. And they would teach him, I was sure, about stuff we didn't have time to contemplate or understand (here, bound to earthly and temporal thoughts).
I think that was my biggest struggle in all of it.
In the book, Mourning with Those that Mourn, my section reads, in part: ". . . my initial emotional reaction was relief. I was so glad that my dad wasn't calling about Mom, that I was actually relieved. Thinking back on it, I'm ashamed that I was relieved it was Max who was dead."
This was fully edited - and whether I couldn't express myself in words at the time, or couldn't convey what was in my mind, or just became exhausted by the whole process, it wasn't technically true.
I did think my Dad must have been calling about my mom when he phoned on that Sunday in September 1997. The instant he told me about Max, I felt this huge wave of relief sweep across me. A peace I now associate with that look on his face (in my dream) as he fell into our grandmother's arms. He was safe, now.
It wasn't popular, and very against what my family wanted to convey, in the days after Max's passing. There was a huge effort to communicate to Max's peers that this isn't the method to go about getting your questions answered. "Max isn't in the arms of Jesus," was something said at the time. And whether or not that was technically true, I was so absolutely convinced that he was 'alive' somewhere and he was okay, I wasn't shy about saying it. Until I nearly learned to regret telling people. Because, while it carried me through (or over) whatever the rest of them were feeling or experiencing, in some ways, I think I made it worse for them.
And yet, to me, it was so incredibly real - in a confirming way. Label it what you will (denial / wishful thinking / dissociation). I was marginally jealous of who Max was spending time with; because these were people I knew, or I thought I did . . . and my soul did long to be there (just not enough to detach from complete fiction into fantasy).
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