We are fam-i-ly!

My parents spent 5 weeks in Germany this summer.  I was in town for a funeral and I stopped by thier house to get something.  After I was done I went to the freezer to get an icepack and when I opend the freezer...BAM! I got punched in the face!  I shut the door.  I slowly opened it again and my nose began burning, my eyes were greeted with the moldy, maggot filled mess that the freezer had become.  I shut the door tighter.  I checked to see if it was plugged in...yep.  I opened the fridge and my worst fear was confirmed.  The light inside came on but there was no cool.  The next few hours were spent with a lot of squirming, gagging and cussing.  (My guess is that 5 minutes after they left for Germany the fridge went "kaput".) At one point I picked up what had been a pound of hamburger and the paper disintegrated and a pound of happy-to-be-alive maggots fell out onto my arm and did a happy dance!!! My only defense was to think of something else and to begin blaming others.  Naturally, I thought of my siblings. I began to imagine what each one of them would have done had they been in my shoes.
John: 37 years old, married 13 years and has two preteen kids.  He is a large person.  One would think he could just tape the doors shut and carry the whole mess to the back yard with one hand.  That is not what I imagine John would do.  I think he would taste something.  I have no idea why.  I don't usually understand him. I do think he would have a solid explanation/justification for why he chose to taste something.  I'm guessing moldy, maggoty beef is a delicacy somewhere and what better opportunity for him to feed his curiosity than this.  He would have been proud of himself.
Peter: 35 years old, 4 kids ranging from kindergarten to high school, a self described knuckle-dragger with a degree.  He's an animal. Not like a wild, crazy eyed animal but like a giant mass of meat.  Working out is his love.  Not cardio, weights.  I think he would have called some meat-head friends, grabbed some beer and somehow made a game of who could lift and carry the damn thing out into the yard.  He wouldn't have taped the doors shut.  Shit would have spilled.  It would have been a bigger mess when he was done than when he started but he and his friends would have had the time of their lives.  He might have laughed hard enough to puke but no one would even notice given the rotten smell and the smell of sweat that would have already filled the house. He would have been proud of himself.
I'm next in order and you all know what I did.  I took care of that shit. I cleaned out the fridge, got help moving it to the back yard. I made sure someone would come pick up the old fridge, the garbage truck would make a special trip to pick up the trash and a new fridge was being ordered and would be in place when my parents got home. I rock. I am proud of myself.
Matthew: 29 years old, married 4 years and has a newborn baby girl.  Matthew would have shut the door quietly.  Made sure that his photographic mind placed everything exactly where it was when he walked in.  Wiped the whole house down so there was no prints and gotten rid of any DNA evidence he was ever there.  He would have spent more time and effort making sure there was no sign of him than he would have if he had just taken care of the fridge mess.  No, he would have disappeared and been shocked when he "found out" that the fridge quit.   He would have been proud of himself.
Hannah: The baby of the family, 26 years old.  She would have opened the door, closed it again and immediately called Dad and told him to come home from Germany to take care of the mess.  He would have been there in minutes.  He would have taken care of the mess and then cooked her a nice meal and thanked her for her quick thinking. They would both be proud of her.
As hard as I try, I can not imagine what would have happened had my parents found the mess.  My best guess is that Dad's head would have exploded and Mom would have chalked it up to a character building experience.

Remembering Bryan

I have had such a mixture of feelings since hearing of Bryan's death. There is a group of us who knew Bryan best before his deployment. He was fun. He could laugh so easily. I had so much fun with him and Jess as a couple and have some really great memories of the two of them (whether they were on-again or off-again). One of the ways he touched my life was with his understanding and patience.

Bryan and Jess showing their mad skills at my house after his first deployment

After his second deployment he was a changed man. It seemed like he cut his oldest friends and family (Jessica and Braydon) out of his life.  It seemed like he started a new life as a different person.  After reading all the posts and memories from his Army friends I have realized that his personality didn't change... he had been changed.  His Army family knew the same silly, fun Bryan that we knew he just couldn't be that person with us anymore.  The difference was that after being deployed Bryan knew things about life that the rest of us, safe and unaware in Hays, KS didn't know.  He looked at us through different eyes.  He had seen the world and it's harsh reality. And we didn't make sense to him anymore. He had an unbreakable bond with other Army soldiers who had witnessed what he had witnessed.
After my first husband was taken from me by a traumatic brain injury I looked at my friends and wondered how they could be so clueless.  Thinking their problems were so important I couldn't relate to them.  I had seen a much bigger and painful picture of the world.  I could see things that only experience can show a person. 
Bryan had experienced something that we could never imagine.  And after that he found a comfort in his Army family that he could never find in the people he grew up with.  Once he was able to surround himself with people who were like him he was able to form a bond with Braydon and they were closer than ever before.
I am finding comfort in hearing what a great friend and brother Bryan was.  I am sorry that I never took the time to think about what life might have been like for him after being deployed and I am sorry I misjudged him for the past few years.  I am sorry but I don't feel guilty because there was no way I could have known this until reading all the posts and stories that are being posted about him by the people he spent the last few years with.  He was the same fun, caring, person, just with a different group of people.  People that had an understanding of him that I couldn't possibly have had.