Not Done With My Brother

I’m Not Done With My Brother‘s Death.    

It’s been three years. It took him ten years of slow dying to get there, now it’s been three since he took his final breath. His last words, “Give me a pill.”

 I loved my brother Paul. I love him now. But I was, am still, angry with him and frustrated by his choices. I gnash my teeth over him and would even now like to give him a kick in the pants, a shaking by the shoulders, a tongue lashing. But all of his pants have been given away and his shoulders along with the rest of him were cremated. Maybe this little essay is a kind of tongue-lashing, though tongue-lashings were never effective.

I have about an eighth of a cup of his “cremains” in a small green glass bottle with a cork in the narrow neck. Its customary place is on a window sill in my living room where I can see it every time I take my writing seat on the sofa. But earlier this month I set up my annual Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead -  shrine. For the month of November the green bottle sits next to a large photo of my grinning brother. He smiles among the other pictures of beloved deceased along with candles, marigolds, Mexican-themed mementoes and two large vases of sunflowers. So yes, he is one of my cherished dead even though, with tears in my eyes, I want to smack the crooked smile off of the cute bearded face in that photo ….. 

For ten years I was saying good-bye to him. After each of many visits to my hometown, I’d return to California and say to my husband, “I just saw my brother for the last time.”  His gaunt body. His sunken eyes. His tremors. 

He was just your run of the mill addict, taking pills by the handful and washing them down with beer or wine; an arrogant, in-denial know-it-all. I can handle it. I know what I’m doing.  It was a long, slow, painful-to-watch decline. I observed mostly from a distance. There were others, a wife, an adult son, siblings, friends, who had front-row seats - who did the ER runs, the hospital visiting, the picking up off the floor, the hours-long fighting, the somber conversations with doctors. Aside from my two yearly visits, I was connected only by phone and email.

Maddeningly, between each crisis, Paul was his brilliant self: talented arborist, nature-lover, green environmental activist, skilled musician, strident lefty, generous neighbor, whimsical philosopher, so proud of his Irish roots. We had a special connection – could have deep conversations on the same plane. He could crack me up in a heartbeat. No wonder I’m pissed. He should still be here.  

Over the years, my mother would every-so-often declare, “The man in the moon is Paul.”  When the moon is full and the sky is clear - there he is; his mournful deep-set eyes looking off to the right, his crooked nose, his “O” of a mouth. It’s Paul’s face alright, and I console myself with the preposterous thought that he is looking down on me, watching over me.

I’m grateful for memorial ceremonies. At Paul’s service, person after person got up to talk about the good parts of his life: how much he contributed to the urban green-space projects of our home town, his generosity of time and talent, his kindness, his artistic gifts, his great sense of humor. Sometimes with an addict the good qualities are forgotten as families struggle to cope with the ugly and exasperating behaviors – irritability, manipulation, lying, defensiveness, obsessiveness, depression. Paul had all of those and more. But it’s over now and he is gone. I’m no longer waiting for him to die. He’s done it.

But I’m not done with him. I’m not yet done with him.