As events unfold in real time, it is surreal to observe how many of us are witnessing something I know I never imagined possible in my lifetime . Few are still around who were here during the largest pandemic in modern history (the Spanish Flu of 1918). At that time, 50 million people died worldwide (the equivalent of 200 million today), with 500,000 deaths here in the United States. The majority of deaths back then included people in their 20s, 30s, and 40s. (This is where my original post about Coronavirus ended...)
...and then I got the news this morning that my only sibling and younger brother died yesterday. I don't know what he died from. His roommate messaged me on Facebook to tell me when he found my brother dead in his bedroom, but I didn't see his message until this morning. I just got off the phone with him, by the way. I am going over there tomorrow to pick up my brother's ID and the paperwork from the coroner's office. I am also meeting my brother's roommate for the first time. He's recovering from shoulder surgery; he just got home from the hospital on Friday. My brother was to function as his roommate's primary caretaker...which had been going on for some time anyway, according to the roommate. Friends are advising me not to go over there as this roommate might be infected with coronavirus. Huh? All I know is that my 57 year old brother died...and his roommate no doubt knew him better than I ever did. Which is such a strange and tragic reality to acknowledge, but it is what it is.
My brother Gordon. He was so cute as a baby and young child. I remember dressing him up in his snowsuit when he was only two years old or so...so we could go out and "find" our wandering mother who left us alone at home while she went out "to the doctor". She didn't drive; she walked everywhere or took the bus. On that particular day, it was terribly snowy outside and she hadn't come home after hours of being gone. So, my eight year old self figured if I got my brother and I both dressed up, we could at least go out and meet her half way from where the local doctor's office was located in our town. How I "knew" where it was logistically is beyond me, but no kidding I can figure out how to get to most any geographic destination like it's my own 6th sense. This before GPS was even invented...
After bundling both of us up, we began walking towards Roemer Clinic. Fortunately, we found her walking back towards our house. She wasn't surprised; she wasn't mad. She was just herself. I was grateful. I can remember thinking back then if we didn't end up seeing her...I'd have to walk us to our aunt's house and wait until she and my uncle came home from work....
My brother was 57 years old when he died yesterday. He never married; he had no children of his own. He had a wicked relationship with alcohol and drugs since he was about 12 years old (7th grade). He was always a very smart kid in elementary school, but since I was kicked out of our parents' home when he was 12 and I was 18...I didn't see or speak to him much since then. Of course our mother kept me apprised of what he was doing throughout the years, mostly to do with his alcohol and drug use. He did stand up in my wedding when I was 23 and he was 17. He was also caught that night out in the parking lot smoking weed with our neighbor's youngest son, who also attended my wedding. Yep, my brother was an old pro by age 17 having five years of recreational substance use under his belt by then.
I remember praying for him a lot over the years. There was the time he accidentally killed someone while driving and a motorcycle and its rider ran into his rear passenger side door. At least that's what I was told. Then there was the time I was upstairs in our parents' home and saw the computer printout (old skool style) which seemed to go on forever of my brother's various "charges" to do with his driving record. He lost his driver's license decades ago, by the way. I also remember when my mother told me about his "drop down" weed business. He stayed upstairs in my old bedroom (our attic that was converted to my bedroom when I was in 9th grade), so when a "customer" came by to pick up his order of weed, my brother dropped it down to him from his bedroom window. Since my mother knew about his business, she must have been the one who collected the money (?!). I have no idea. I can't even go there about "their" relationship. That will be for another time in another post.
As a young married wife, I remember when we were in Europe and my mother in law called us in a panic that someone had tried breaking into our house when she went by randomly one day to check on it. She saw the front screen had been removed from our ground-level office window....left lying on the grass...and with footprints in the flower bed right around the window itself. When we returned from Europe and my mother called...I told her the story about the potential break-in. Very casually she said to me, "Oh..that was just your brother; he was out that way and needed a place to sleep." Really? Yes, that's what she said---and was actually aggravated when I said the incident had scared my poor mother in law to bits, then in her late late 60s.
I also remember the time our mother called me at 7AM when I was making food for our daughter's elementary school class (I was the Room Mom)...and my mother started screaming into the phone "He's dead! He's dead!' as soon as I answered the phone said "Hello". After asking "Who is this?" and finding out it was my mother screaming about my brother....she told me that he overdosed and was rushed to their local area hospital. "He's dead!" When I asked her how he got to the hospital, she simply replied "Oh, he drove himself." Okay then. Yeah, it was like that with her...and with him.
Another time, my aunt and I were on the telephone. She was my mother's only sister. She was telling me (without screaming...that wasn't her style), that my brother was "probably" dead because they just had found a body in their hometown by some railroad tracks...and my brother, at that point, had been missing for a couple of days. As she was telling me this, I became more and more upset because that's all she "had" as evidence/information to share. In spite of my attempts to gain some clarity here, she ended our call by telling me, "And don't forget, if you make a housecoat for me like I asked, be sure to put pockets in it up front!" Yeah, it was like that with her too.
After that....I know my brother made at least one suicide attempt after our father died. They had been living together for some years after our mother passed in late 2007. After my father's death, my brother ingested all of my father's insulin medication. I had no idea what was going on until the hospital called me to say "Oh, your brother is out of his coma! You can come see him now." HUH?! I went and saw him; he was a mess. Barely verbal...doing a lot of staring....and then he was discharged. He didn't contact me at all after that, though one of his "friends" did. "Your brother won't leave my house; make him leave my house!", said the voice on the other end of the phone. Apparently my brother was staying and sleeping under this man's dining room table; that's what I was told. I suggested that this "friend" do things the proper way and get the local police involved. I assume he did, as my brother ended up drifting from place to place after that. Oh, and the reason why he didn't stay where he and my father were living was because they were in the process of being evicted. My mother told me they had lived in 13 different places (all in our same hometown) during the 10 years between the selling of their family home in 1997...and to the time of her death in 2007. Clearly, my brother's comfort and "care" was the highest priority for the three of them as their own family. As I have said many times to clients, there ARE parents out there who strike similar deals with their alcohol and/or drug addicted adult child. "Just don't leave us...and we'll make sure you get whatever you want when you want it, even when and if it's bad for you." Sadly, this was the bargain struck between our parents and my brother...whether those words were spoken or not between them.
Ultimately, my brother found a job and someone to live with after my father's death and recovery from his own suicide attempt. The company who hired my brother was heralded in the local news as "felon friendly", which to me, was the only way my brother could possibly be hired by anyone. My brother never spent time in the big house (as I did during my own training for my current career)...but he spent many a time in various local jails in our metropolitan area. He did let me know he was doing "great" when he asked for my personal information, claiming that he had an insurance policy through his employer and needed my current address, etc. His employer's company has since shut down. I understand from his now former roommate that my brother was let go before the company closed for good. I still don't know if there was a legit insurance policy or not...or if my brother just wanted to know where I lived.
The last time I spoke to my brother was September of 2016. I know because I wrote him a letter (never sent) dated one year later and still in my computer here. I asked him if he was sober yet; I written him how our last living relative (our aunt) had died the May before our last phone chat. I asked about his life and relationship with his most recent roommate.
No, I didn't send the letter. The last time I had seen my brother was when I dropped off some things for him as he was recovering from heart valve replacement surgery. This was six months or so before our last phone call. I remembered how he behaved towards me when I saw him face to face to give him some clothing items and shoes he asked for. I was disappointed. In spite of his heart-related issues and surgeries to repair it, he did not appear to have any spiritual epiphanies worth sharing (at least with me).
On the phone with me that last time in 2016, he said he stopped taking the medication given to him for his new heart valve and hole repair. He didn't say why; he just said he stopped taking it. When I asked why he called me that day, his response was "I just wanted to tell you how good I'm doing." Grant it, my brother clearly had self-esteem issues; that was not new information. Yet it was so sad to think he never even met his only niece while alive...because he didn't make any effort to.
When I talked to my brother's roommate this morning, I asked him if my brother had ever been to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed at all. He told me no. Why am I surprised? My brother, not unlike our parents when they were alive, chose to do anything their own way. Nobody and no one else "knew" anything better than they, themselves did. In my brother's case, he chose alcohol, weed, and other substances to feel better on demand. My parents chose fighting with each other and alternately abusing and neglecting us in order for them to feel better on demand---or so as it appeared to me.
I became an LLP psychologist. My brother became a statistic. I can only hope and pray he got himself right with God before he was taken yesterday. In the end, that's all that matters. Do you know God so you can know peace? God knows my brother needed peace more than anything else.
I don't know if he was sick...or not. I don't know if he just drifted away in his sleep...or not. All I do know is that he had a terribly hard and difficult life, in large part due to becoming comfortable with being served by others. Yes, he was mentally ill....but he was also a sweet, kind, and whip smart young child who I taught to read before he was five years old.
I wish I could have took him with me when I was kicked out at age 18. Even when I begged him to leave when he was around 19, he just stared at me and said "Yeah I know..I'll move out soon." But he never did.
Now he's not only finally moved out...but he's moved on also. Where to I can only hope and pray about that in my own quiet moments.
RIP Gordon my "little" brother. March 14, 2020.
...and then I got the news this morning that my only sibling and younger brother died yesterday. I don't know what he died from. His roommate messaged me on Facebook to tell me when he found my brother dead in his bedroom, but I didn't see his message until this morning. I just got off the phone with him, by the way. I am going over there tomorrow to pick up my brother's ID and the paperwork from the coroner's office. I am also meeting my brother's roommate for the first time. He's recovering from shoulder surgery; he just got home from the hospital on Friday. My brother was to function as his roommate's primary caretaker...which had been going on for some time anyway, according to the roommate. Friends are advising me not to go over there as this roommate might be infected with coronavirus. Huh? All I know is that my 57 year old brother died...and his roommate no doubt knew him better than I ever did. Which is such a strange and tragic reality to acknowledge, but it is what it is.
My brother Gordon. He was so cute as a baby and young child. I remember dressing him up in his snowsuit when he was only two years old or so...so we could go out and "find" our wandering mother who left us alone at home while she went out "to the doctor". She didn't drive; she walked everywhere or took the bus. On that particular day, it was terribly snowy outside and she hadn't come home after hours of being gone. So, my eight year old self figured if I got my brother and I both dressed up, we could at least go out and meet her half way from where the local doctor's office was located in our town. How I "knew" where it was logistically is beyond me, but no kidding I can figure out how to get to most any geographic destination like it's my own 6th sense. This before GPS was even invented...
After bundling both of us up, we began walking towards Roemer Clinic. Fortunately, we found her walking back towards our house. She wasn't surprised; she wasn't mad. She was just herself. I was grateful. I can remember thinking back then if we didn't end up seeing her...I'd have to walk us to our aunt's house and wait until she and my uncle came home from work....
My brother was 57 years old when he died yesterday. He never married; he had no children of his own. He had a wicked relationship with alcohol and drugs since he was about 12 years old (7th grade). He was always a very smart kid in elementary school, but since I was kicked out of our parents' home when he was 12 and I was 18...I didn't see or speak to him much since then. Of course our mother kept me apprised of what he was doing throughout the years, mostly to do with his alcohol and drug use. He did stand up in my wedding when I was 23 and he was 17. He was also caught that night out in the parking lot smoking weed with our neighbor's youngest son, who also attended my wedding. Yep, my brother was an old pro by age 17 having five years of recreational substance use under his belt by then.
I remember praying for him a lot over the years. There was the time he accidentally killed someone while driving and a motorcycle and its rider ran into his rear passenger side door. At least that's what I was told. Then there was the time I was upstairs in our parents' home and saw the computer printout (old skool style) which seemed to go on forever of my brother's various "charges" to do with his driving record. He lost his driver's license decades ago, by the way. I also remember when my mother told me about his "drop down" weed business. He stayed upstairs in my old bedroom (our attic that was converted to my bedroom when I was in 9th grade), so when a "customer" came by to pick up his order of weed, my brother dropped it down to him from his bedroom window. Since my mother knew about his business, she must have been the one who collected the money (?!). I have no idea. I can't even go there about "their" relationship. That will be for another time in another post.
As a young married wife, I remember when we were in Europe and my mother in law called us in a panic that someone had tried breaking into our house when she went by randomly one day to check on it. She saw the front screen had been removed from our ground-level office window....left lying on the grass...and with footprints in the flower bed right around the window itself. When we returned from Europe and my mother called...I told her the story about the potential break-in. Very casually she said to me, "Oh..that was just your brother; he was out that way and needed a place to sleep." Really? Yes, that's what she said---and was actually aggravated when I said the incident had scared my poor mother in law to bits, then in her late late 60s.
I also remember the time our mother called me at 7AM when I was making food for our daughter's elementary school class (I was the Room Mom)...and my mother started screaming into the phone "He's dead! He's dead!' as soon as I answered the phone said "Hello". After asking "Who is this?" and finding out it was my mother screaming about my brother....she told me that he overdosed and was rushed to their local area hospital. "He's dead!" When I asked her how he got to the hospital, she simply replied "Oh, he drove himself." Okay then. Yeah, it was like that with her...and with him.
Another time, my aunt and I were on the telephone. She was my mother's only sister. She was telling me (without screaming...that wasn't her style), that my brother was "probably" dead because they just had found a body in their hometown by some railroad tracks...and my brother, at that point, had been missing for a couple of days. As she was telling me this, I became more and more upset because that's all she "had" as evidence/information to share. In spite of my attempts to gain some clarity here, she ended our call by telling me, "And don't forget, if you make a housecoat for me like I asked, be sure to put pockets in it up front!" Yeah, it was like that with her too.
After that....I know my brother made at least one suicide attempt after our father died. They had been living together for some years after our mother passed in late 2007. After my father's death, my brother ingested all of my father's insulin medication. I had no idea what was going on until the hospital called me to say "Oh, your brother is out of his coma! You can come see him now." HUH?! I went and saw him; he was a mess. Barely verbal...doing a lot of staring....and then he was discharged. He didn't contact me at all after that, though one of his "friends" did. "Your brother won't leave my house; make him leave my house!", said the voice on the other end of the phone. Apparently my brother was staying and sleeping under this man's dining room table; that's what I was told. I suggested that this "friend" do things the proper way and get the local police involved. I assume he did, as my brother ended up drifting from place to place after that. Oh, and the reason why he didn't stay where he and my father were living was because they were in the process of being evicted. My mother told me they had lived in 13 different places (all in our same hometown) during the 10 years between the selling of their family home in 1997...and to the time of her death in 2007. Clearly, my brother's comfort and "care" was the highest priority for the three of them as their own family. As I have said many times to clients, there ARE parents out there who strike similar deals with their alcohol and/or drug addicted adult child. "Just don't leave us...and we'll make sure you get whatever you want when you want it, even when and if it's bad for you." Sadly, this was the bargain struck between our parents and my brother...whether those words were spoken or not between them.
Ultimately, my brother found a job and someone to live with after my father's death and recovery from his own suicide attempt. The company who hired my brother was heralded in the local news as "felon friendly", which to me, was the only way my brother could possibly be hired by anyone. My brother never spent time in the big house (as I did during my own training for my current career)...but he spent many a time in various local jails in our metropolitan area. He did let me know he was doing "great" when he asked for my personal information, claiming that he had an insurance policy through his employer and needed my current address, etc. His employer's company has since shut down. I understand from his now former roommate that my brother was let go before the company closed for good. I still don't know if there was a legit insurance policy or not...or if my brother just wanted to know where I lived.
The last time I spoke to my brother was September of 2016. I know because I wrote him a letter (never sent) dated one year later and still in my computer here. I asked him if he was sober yet; I written him how our last living relative (our aunt) had died the May before our last phone chat. I asked about his life and relationship with his most recent roommate.
No, I didn't send the letter. The last time I had seen my brother was when I dropped off some things for him as he was recovering from heart valve replacement surgery. This was six months or so before our last phone call. I remembered how he behaved towards me when I saw him face to face to give him some clothing items and shoes he asked for. I was disappointed. In spite of his heart-related issues and surgeries to repair it, he did not appear to have any spiritual epiphanies worth sharing (at least with me).
On the phone with me that last time in 2016, he said he stopped taking the medication given to him for his new heart valve and hole repair. He didn't say why; he just said he stopped taking it. When I asked why he called me that day, his response was "I just wanted to tell you how good I'm doing." Grant it, my brother clearly had self-esteem issues; that was not new information. Yet it was so sad to think he never even met his only niece while alive...because he didn't make any effort to.
When I talked to my brother's roommate this morning, I asked him if my brother had ever been to a psychiatrist and got diagnosed at all. He told me no. Why am I surprised? My brother, not unlike our parents when they were alive, chose to do anything their own way. Nobody and no one else "knew" anything better than they, themselves did. In my brother's case, he chose alcohol, weed, and other substances to feel better on demand. My parents chose fighting with each other and alternately abusing and neglecting us in order for them to feel better on demand---or so as it appeared to me.
I became an LLP psychologist. My brother became a statistic. I can only hope and pray he got himself right with God before he was taken yesterday. In the end, that's all that matters. Do you know God so you can know peace? God knows my brother needed peace more than anything else.
I don't know if he was sick...or not. I don't know if he just drifted away in his sleep...or not. All I do know is that he had a terribly hard and difficult life, in large part due to becoming comfortable with being served by others. Yes, he was mentally ill....but he was also a sweet, kind, and whip smart young child who I taught to read before he was five years old.
I wish I could have took him with me when I was kicked out at age 18. Even when I begged him to leave when he was around 19, he just stared at me and said "Yeah I know..I'll move out soon." But he never did.
Now he's not only finally moved out...but he's moved on also. Where to I can only hope and pray about that in my own quiet moments.
RIP Gordon my "little" brother. March 14, 2020.