Joseph Coker

I’m back

I’m back from the states, I’m back from Germany. I’m back in Copenhagen, back to work, back to Jujitsu, back to questions and answers. There’s a lot to come back to.

Music has been an underground stream going in the back and front of my mind over the last 6 months. I have been writing a whole lot, but haven’t been doing much else, musically speaking. The hard copy of the recording we made should be done this month. Right now I feel like the printing of that cd will be the ending of a chapter

But I am coming back. I am trying to pick up where I left off and trying to get a new vision for my music. I want to start playing out. I realize I have been rediscent to play, waiting for perfect conditions. Finally, I think I am ready to throw myself out there, and take the lumps that come. .

I guess I am rediscovering my desire to play. Songwriting will always be my first love, but playing is something that I am hungry for. Two of the most fufilling things in this life for me are writng good songs, and making a connection to people with my music.

If I made a wishlist for myself right now, it would be this; a band room where I can explore my writing and rehearse with my band, places to play, and a lifestyle that would allow me to be more devoted to these things that I find fufilling. Chomp, chomp, chomp. Hungry to get in the creative flow, to release. To live in that state of output.

Where I am at

The three brothers. Bradley (left) looking serious, Jonathan (right) just putting up with it, and me in the middle thinking this is the coolest thing ever.

Its been a strange year. I got to traveled to Brazil for work in January, and I will be traveling to Spain for work next week. In between these two bookmarks, my brother passed away. For the second time in my life, I was awoken to find out that one of my siblings was fading fast, I said a prayer for them to make it through somehow, and shortly after got the news that they were gone.

I lost my sister in 92, and now my brother is gone. I keep dreaming about him, but never in some cool, cathartic kind of way. Its usually me trying to warn him, while he doesn’t take it seriously. Me calling him from the future telling him to go get his heart checked out, him and I sitting in his front yard and I ask him if he want’s to know the day of his death, he answers by shrugging his shoulders with a “couldn’t care less” facial expression. I wish I could dream up some shining moment of him. But I am very careful about what I wish. I don’t want to hypnotize myself and conjure up some image of him.

I feel his absence in the macro of my life, and also in the micro, day to day, call up to chat about things part of life.

People have been good to me. Many people have written and shown my family and I lots of love. Thank you to everyone for that.

Being in Denmark has been very hard. I have so many sweet Danish friends, and yet I knew that it was going to be hard coming back. Danes can be so stoic, and I feared I wouldn’t have many people to share with. With a few unexpected exceptions, I was kind of right. People don’t know what to say, some don’t bother to say anything (which actually makes it worse). I had one friend who knew why I had been in the states, and not only didn’t say anything, this person wished me condolences from another of our mutual friends..and still didn’t say anything. It makes me want to scream.

People walk around on the streets, going about their business like nothing has changed. For them nothing has changed. I was talking to my mom about this and she described it this way “our family has just gone through a hurricane and the house is wrecked, and you live in a neighborhood with people who don’t have any trees in their yard”. You may have to be from Charleston to fully understand the metaphor, but I thought it was well said.

The tragedy of Brad’s death is one thing. And strangely, I think I am dealing with that ok. But where I want to pull out my hair is in the little things. When we came back, we were just slammed by practical and logistical problems. And the worst of it is in the feeling that God is very far from us right now. I don’t believe that this is the true state of things. But the way I feel right now is that if I don’t actively cause it to happen, no good thing seems to come our way. I know this may be self pity, but that is what I am up to.

I feel really angry a lot lately. I work, I write, I pray with Lindsay at night, I go to Jujitsu two times a week, and I try to claw the logistical mokey’s off of my back one by one. Its very hard to feel like everything depends on you, thats how I feel right now. I am trying to rise to the occasion. Tough times make tough men, but I fear for my heart. I want a tough mind, a tough character, a tough body, but a gentle heart.

Thank you for all the love and support everyone. Thanks for everyone thats written or called or donated to the memorial funds or brought food. We love you too.

reflections on my brother part 2

Bradley cutting a rug with brother Jonathan and friends

My brother Jonathan wrote in a blog that Bradley was irreverent. I think that is pretty accurate in how Bradley related to many institutions. Of course that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a believing guy, but he wasn’t a buy the book type either with anything.

By all accounts, Bradley was a “bad” kid I don’t mean he wasn’t kind or smart, or that he was vindictive…but he was not the quiet, obedient type. Bradley was always trying to make something happen, this was not always appreciated.

One year, he was in summer school. The teacher had kept a tight rain on the class. In the last week, she had stuck the class with a huge project that would pass or fail them for the course. There was a lot of brow beating and citing of references involved.

One day, while the class was hard at work under the eye of the teacher, she announced that she had to go to the bathroom and that she was leaving the door open so the teacher in the classroom next door could make sure they behaved. She leaves. Bradley, making sure she is gone, gets up and does the most natural thing according to his strange brain; he goes and looks in the teacher’s grade book. This leads to a startling discovery. The teacher has already averaged out everyone’s grade for the year, and this big project is total meaningless busywork!

Bradley, (again, relying on instinct) announces this joyous news to the class and proceeds to instigate a class-wide, paper ball fight as several kids in the class begin to tear up their carefully written projects.

At some point, a principal is called into the picture, by the time he arrives, the room is spotless and everyone is sitting quiet but a little breathless in their seats.

The funny thing about this story was that this wasn’t just some incident, or an “off” day. He seemed to always have this eye for “starting something”. I have long suspected that his attention moved quickly from thing to thing, and if he couldn’t find something entertaining enough, he would create it.

Bradley loved to stir things up. He loved to throw a good hearted wrench into the system of the way people thought they had to behave.

I remember when he first became a Christian. He wrote checks to a long list of ministries and charities, and he was so happy to do so. He would tell me with joy how, when making a check to some very formal preacher or charity, he would write funny things on the memo section like “don’t fake the funk”.

In relationship to people, Bradley seemed to have a dual talent. He would challenge people to see themselves for what they could be, and not what they were. In other words, he saw amazing things in very common people. At the same time that he took people and their dreams seriously, he had a way of making sure that you didn’t get too serious.

I was processing with him a year or so ago about how I had made a decision to join a wrestling class (Brasillian Jujitsu). Joining it was a big deal for me. I always rejected the over-machismo thing in high school and for some reason, grappling symbolized that for me. I was telling this story to Brad about how I was watching a wrestling class, seeing these guys training, and something in me was like “I want to wrestle too”. In pure Bradley fashion, he listened to the whole thing, waited a beat, then asked me with a pause “so…when you were watching this class…was there a particular guy out there that you wanted to wrestle with?”.

My brother took people seriously, but didn’t let them take themselves too seriously.

reflections on my brother pt. 1

Bradley encouraging me while I tell him how nervous I was after winning my first match at the nationals

I have so much to say about Bradley.  Anyone who really knew him understands exactly what I mean.   I don’t really think I need to defend my motivations for sharing about him in such a public forum, but suffice it to say I want to fill in the picture of him.  As much as people tried to represent him accurately in different writings and in the memorial service, I feel like there is so much more that can be said about him.

I bristle when people say that “it was his time” or “his work on earth was done”.  I know its well meant, but I just don’t agree.  Bradley’s work was not done.  He left a lot unfinished.

But knowing Bradley, even if he lived to be 90, he would have left something unfinished.  He always had his hands in something.  He was always active.

Bradley was so multi-faceted.  I think people have belabored the point of his spiritual side so I feel no need to expound there, but he was so much more.  Bradley was funny, really funny.  He was wise, and he was not afraid of a fight.  His love, his faith in people, his humor, his wisdom;  I will feel the absence of those till I get to see him again.

We talked on the phone every week, he was so good about staying in touch.  He would always be sending me some funny picture on his iphone.  One week it was a house he was working on, another time it would be a shot of some in a Walmart with a crazy mullet.  He was always communicating.

Bradley and I had such a strange relationship.  On one hand, he was such an obvious source of strength to me.  At the same time, I know he took strength from our brotherhood, and for that I am very grateful.

With all due respect to my dad, in some ways Bradley fathered me.  In some ways we were like twins.  In other ways we were like friends who took turns hurting each other and making up.  As time went on and I grew up a bit, he took less of a hands on roll in my life, but two elements always remained; his consistent voice of affirmation over my life, and the sense that we were iron sharpening iron.

Bradley did his best to protect me.  I remember one time when our family was in the middle of a very volatile conflict, I was witness to a horrific falling out between some family members.  I must of been 8 years old, and I was just slumped in the front seat of a car crying my eyes out.  Bradley came out to me, and tried to distract me from all the arguing by showing me how he could grab the rim on the basketball goal in the yard.  When others were not doing the protecting, Bradley stepped in and would do his best.

Another time, I remember he was a teenager and was staying with us.  He would be sleeping on the couch, and I would remember him coming into my room and picking me up in the middle of the night and bringing me to the living room to sleep on the couch with him because he had some bad dreams.  I don’t know why my prescence made him feel better, but I am glad it did.

I saw “The Fighter” the other night with Lindsay.  When it came to the last scene (I will let you see it for yourself), I just lost it.  What hit me was this; no matter what I build or achieve in my life, no matter what great things I may do, Bradley will never get to see it, from earth at least.  That is quite a loss to me.

But as I write this, I think that maybe that is not entirely true.  Bradley saw big things in me when he was down here.  In the darkest times of my life, when I felt like the whole world was against me, I could always look into my heart and realize that Bradley was out there somewhere in the world with 100% faith in me to succeed.  And it went both ways.  We were two brothers in the trenches, but its like we had one heart.  Losing him feels like losing my soul.

Bradley never gave up on the people he believed in. I want to be like that with the people I love.

P.S.  Thanks to the scores of people who have shown kindness to my family during this time.  We are so thankful.  And the email subscription button is out of whack right now, sorry for the inconvenience.