Note: Three years ago I had the opportunity to take a memoir writing class with author Jessica Hendry Nelson. Our final assignment came weeks after the anniversary of my brother’s death, so it felt natural to use that exercise to process and reflect. I’ve never shared the assignment outside of workshopping it in class, and I was hoping to work in those edits “someday.” But here I am three years later, brushing it off to read on the 15th anniversary of losing Warren. It still hasn’t been edited and that’s okay, so I’m sharing it anyway to remember and celebrate Warren.
This was the day that everything changed.
Between Here and There
“Homesickness is just a state of mind for me. I'm always missing someone or someplace or something, I'm always trying to get back to some imaginary somewhere. My life has been one long longing.” – Elizabeth Wurtzel
We take the elevator to the top and unlock a world I’ve never seen. Timmy’s apartment is in a well-known skyrise in Roppongi, a place I’ve come to know by now, but this is my first time to the top. The building is ever-present and soars over the city, like a big brother looking down on the scrambling hybrid of humanity – expats, late night club goers, foreign embassies, the rumored yakuza, and those that flock to swim in the luxury of high-end retail. It watches over, not intrusively, just in a way that you know it’s always there.
I’m not sure why Timmy is here, but he’s spent a lot of time in Tokyo, and he’s been living here on and off for a while now. Maybe it’s a way to keep himself out of trouble back home in New York, or because he loves getting lost in a place where no one knows him. Or maybe it’s just the opposite, who knows. He is kind and fun and connected, and most importantly, he knows how to get us exactly where we need to be in a land of twists and turns.
A few months earlier I walked through the marble columns of a building on campus back in Vermont, and made my way up to the dark ornate room on the second floor. The room was huge and the table fitting – a long, thick slab of wood, almost as if I was about to meet with the President. And I was. After spending the last six months working to get accepted to my study abroad program, I received a notice telling me I was no longer accepted because of a violation on my student record leftover from freshman year. Disciplinary probation is really just a formal way of saying I drank too much and got busted for it. Rookie move, I know. But there I sat in front of this stodgy old man who held the highest power, armed with my solid GPA, extensive volunteer work, a first-of- its-kind internship on the horizon, and a dream worth fighting for. I have no idea how I got this meeting.
Resilience and perseverance raised me and their names are Mom and Dad. I guess you could say that’s where my brother Warren and I got it from. Mom was one of six, Dad one of thirteen, and between them a life of faith through tragedy and triumph. It sounds heroic, but it was never a thing for us, it was just life, really, and we always figured it out. Usually there was no other choice. I stepped out of the library and gave my brother a call, pacing back and forth before my meeting, “you tell that guy that if he doesn’t do something about this, I’ll drive up there and change his mind.” He used more choice words than that, of course, as he often did, but I was able to conquer this one on my own.
Timmy’s father is an iconic artist who is well respected in the street culture scene, which in Japan means he’s a god. Timmy knows Tokyo well and our friendship makes me feel at home in place that was so far from it. Our relationship was platonic but I spend the night here often, not for the reasons one would assume. In Japan, a night out either means a sake-buzzed sprint to the last train by 11 pm or having a place to stay where you can take a taxi home into the early morning light.
The elevator approaches the top floor, and Timmy removes the camera strap from his neck and starts fidgeting with the knobs. He just got the camera, and for someone who doesn’t really know how to use one, it’s pretty technical. I know a decent amount about photography, though, and how to control one manually. I learned that love from my dad. There was always a camera around when we were growing up, and we have the boxes of photos and flimsy negatives tucked in every corner of the house to prove it. Under the bed, in the closet, stacked up in that one squeaky drawer in the china cabinet that we can never get closed all the way. Warren and I used to give Dad a hard time for this, but the older I get and memories fade, the more those obsessions have become my own.
The doors open to a world of blinking lights glistening across the dawn of the morning sky. It’s pure magic. The city lights show their face through the smog like the stars we wish on even though we can’t always see them. I’m only 21, but life has already given me many reasons to look up.
We spend the next day shooting more photos and hanging out. His friend stops by, a Japanese MMA fighter who is not much taller than I, but his understated presence divulges importance. I find myself in these situations often, moments that make me realize my time here is much different than my classmates. These moments make me feel like I am a part of this city, rather than just borrowing place, and I’m in no rush to get home.
It’s Mother’s Day, and my phone is dead, but the time difference works in my favor. I eventually make my way to the station with the trees. My Kanji reading is still a work-in-progress, and this is how I remember Roppongi Station. I have a lot of little tricks like that, and this was the easiest to remember. The name itself translates to “six trees, ” and the characters suggest it. I guess you can say that I’m still swimming in a world of wonder of this new place I get to call home, 47 days now to be exact.
My “room” is a box. A carefully rearranged box that doesn’t fit more than a bed, a tall armoire, and a tiny desk. The desk isn’t good for much other than the old phone that sits upon it. It’s the off-white, almost yellow kind with the thick curly cord, a lot like the one that sat next to my grandma’s bed when she moved into my childhood bedroom to spend her last days. Telephones have become terribly poignant objects throughout my life, but those are stories for another time. Yet there it is. And it’s ringing.
I pick up. It’s a woman, a voice I’ve never heard. She introduces herself and explains that she works at the hospital and is with my mom who wants to talk to me. Heartbeat or speed of mind, I’m not sure which is faster, but in those three seconds of hold time, it all comes rushing in. Did my dad have a heart attack? It couldn’t be any of my grandparents, I have none left. Aunt? Uncle? I don’t know. I’ve been there before, too. Was it a friend? No, if that were the case, one of my friends would be calling like they did the last time. I search every pocket of my intricate, overworked brain for what comes next. My mom has been having some health issues recently. It was nothing major, but now I realize I don’t know all that much about hysterectomies. And here she is calling me from the hospital. On Mother’s Day.
“Manda,” voice trembling as she searches, too, except she knows the part that comes next, “Warren died.”
I can’t remember what I did the moment I hung up or the 24 hours before my flight. But I do remember standing on the train platform and the attendant’s white gloves as he pushed us where we were headed. They were gentle and firm, and in true Japanese fashion, always on time. In that sense, the way about them reminds me a lot of my days in Catholic School. The perfect contrast of rules and courtesy – shirt tucked in, class on time, kindness to our neighbor, but always the drive to get ahead. I went to Catholic School my whole life, but what I remember most was that in a time of trouble, God is always there and Church is always home. Where is He now?
The doors close, I don’t know where I’m going, but now I’m on the train. My eyes are glazed over, shining like the seat so clean, the one that I give to the tender old woman with short purple hair. I stand up and take a deep breath, giving a moment of clarity to this haze that is my new reality. I’m in trouble.
The train dings, the doors open. I get off at Meiji Jingumae Harajuku Station. I spend a lot of time here. It’s a place I often come to wander and get lost and find inspiration, one of my favorite parts of this city. Harajuku is the famed area where Japanese teenagers go on Sundays to escape their everyday reality by dressing up in extravagant costumes, allowing them to live another life. It seems fitting.
Meiji Jingumae translates to “in front of the Meiji Shrine.” It’s far from a Catholic Church, but I have no clue where to find one of those around here. I walk out of the station, around the corner, just past where the rockabilly dance crews gather every Sunday, I continue under the Torii gate, into the tranquil forest tucked away from the chaos that surrounds me. And for a moment, it all stood still.
Our siblings are our first real relationships we have outside of our parents. He was my first friend and the first person I learned to play with, share with, and laugh with. He was the first person who picked on me, fought with me and taught me forgiveness. A life without him was never in sight. And I think that’s the hardest thing to get over. – journal entry
Mornings are a reset button, and like the old Nintendo games we used to play with Grandma, if the reset button doesn’t work, you can still blow the dust out and make it work again. Mornings give us a chance to start over, and I think that’s why I grew to hate them.
Down the hall to the shared bathroom, I take a quick shower in the only two stalls we had on our floor. Up until this part of my morning routine, everything feels normal, as if I almost forget. But this is usually where it hits me, and at least here I can hide it. They’re pretty good about that here in Japan, too. Not showing emotions. But I haven’t fully mastered it like they do, nor do I want to.
I spend a week or two at home after the funeral, and fall behind in classes. In all honesty, I didn’t know if I I’d ever go back. But Mom assured me that it’s what Warren would want, reminding me of how proud he was of me for making all of this happen. I know, it sounds like a load of shit to try and find some purpose in it all, but I believed her. I still do. But this 9 am Japanese class makes me question the decision to ever step foot on the plane that brought me back here.
My teacher is relentless and it feels like she’s trying to break me. This is the same teacher that told my classmates I was absent from class the weeks prior because my dad was in a bad accident, which obviously never happened. This woman is destroying me and challenging me in ways I didn’t know were possible.
Every day I leave class early and walk out to the courtyard with tears in my eyes to call Mom and tell her I’m giving up. She begs me to stay and give it one more day. “I’m home, and it’s not better here. Being here won’t make it better,” she says. She’s got a point. This would get me through another night. But the next day we have the same conversation. Her and Dad booked a trip here later that month, it was something I could look forward to, she promises.
I go back to the shrine often, back to where time stands still. It’s the only place that feels like home anymore. I glide my fingers over the little wood boards where shrine goers leave their wishes. I have no idea how I’ll get through these days alone, this new lifetime of alone, a future of alone, my entire life, alone.
But as I look around at the hundreds of wishes enveloping my vision like the stars and lights that used to shine bright before they burnt out into a deep dark nothing, I wipe the tears from my eyes and make mine.
The next morning, I call Mom. But this time it’s different. “I’m coming home, I’m making it happen on my own, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” She tells me I can’t go anywhere because she already booked a flight here. “I can’t last that long,” I tell her. “No, I booked another one. I have to be somewhere on Tuesday for work, but I thought I could come just for the weekend to at least give you a hug.”
We take the elevator up, the doors open. The lights are shining, and tonight, I see them again.
Business Insider: You said you’re afraid of heights. How do you explain this picture?
TM: Honestly, when I’m in the helicopter it can go two ways: certain days I get really scared, and then other days, I don’t really feel as much. We fly with doors open, harnessed in. There are a lot of people literally hanging out, letting the harness hold them. I would never do that. I want to be in the helicopter looking out, but I don’t ever want to feel like the harness is holding me. I want to be holding myself. It’s like riding a roller coaster.
It’s been fifteen years now. Timmy is a well-known photographer and every once in a while I come across an interview like this one that asks how he got started. His story usually begins similar to mine, I was living in Tokyo, living in my new home away from home. And, I read, some days he still gets scared, too.
In memory of Warren Wormann Jr. 4/26/1981 — 5/8/2005
Tailgating together at Bruce Springsteen concert
*Original story written 5/31/2017