My Brother

My brother passed away last weekend after a few stressful weeks following a fall he took. When they were ready to discharge him from the hospital, his doctor recommended Hospice only to have Hospice turn the him down after they did their evaluation. Apparently, with no underlying health issues like cancer or heart failure with a six months or less prognosis their bar is set high for dementia patients who could go on for years. At that point in time he was moved from the hospital to Skilled Nursing at our sister campus and was working on getting stronger so he could return to the Memory Care building next door to me. He seemed to be making progress when he started running a high fever and a temperature they couldn't bring down. So back to the hospital he went and he died in his sleep soon after. He didn’t even last a week after Hospice looked over his medical records.

It's been a long goodbye for my brother and his wonderful kids and they couldn't have done a better job of keeping him safe and well cared for these past few years---nearly a half decade if my memory serves me right. At first they supported him in his own home, eventually bringing in more and more paid caregivers as his dementia worsen. Anyone who has been there, done that knows that home care comes with its own set of issues and stresses and his kids were burning out. A little over a year ago they placed him in the complex where I live.

Those of us who has ever had to place an aging parent in assisted living knows the mixed feelings you go through. It's a special kind of hopelessness that settles in as you watch their world get smaller and smaller and pieces of your parent's personality peel away, but then the euphoria comes when your loved one is having a good day which in turn gives you a good day. It's like you're on a yo-yo string, up and down, up and down with each visit. But all that is past tense now and the hardest memories of recent years will fall by the way side and be replaced by memories of better times. For some it takes longer than for others but making peace with the past is something my brother’s family has had a lot of practice doing. It’s a work in progress for anyone, isn’t it, a journey we make alone with a little help from our friends.

When someone dies the first place we tend to go is to the selfish side, counting the ways our own lives are effected. For me, I’m now the oldest person in our immediate family and possibly the oldest of all my cousins. I’ve lost track of my oldest cousin from the other side of the state. She was a year or two older than my brother. I hated it when she came for extended visits which happened every summer for a week when we were kids. She came with a steamer trunk like people took with them on ocean-liners like the Titanic. She’d lay on my bunk bed reading movie star and Glamour magazines, and she changed the color of her fingernail polish daily and wouldn't leave the room without refreshing her lipstick that matched her nails. Our cottage was on the primitive side back in those days. We took baths in the lake and had an outhouse and I’m guessing that she didn’t like being there anymore than I liked having her. My mom was always after my brother and me to include her in the endless activities we lake front kids could find to do in the country. 

One time my brother came up with a plan to make my cousin an honorary chief in our band of Indians. We placed seven newspapers down in a circle on the sand to sit on. When Jerry brought her down to the circle the rest of us were already in our places and when she took the one place left she sunk down into the water-filled hole we’d dug and covered up with the newspaper. She---I grudgingly acknowledge now---was embarrassed and wanted to go home. We didn’t have phones back in those days and her parents had dropped her and her brother off on their way to a vacation without them. She had no choice but to stay but the rest of the week she stayed in the bedroom. My mom even served her meals in there. If it had been me or Jerry refusing to come out Mom would have let us starve to death.

But my cousin must have forgiven my brother for orchestrating the prank because when Jerry hosted a family reunion at his house in the early ‘80s My cousin and her then husband flew their little two-seater airplane over to join all the other cousins. She was still flamboyant with her long cigarette holder and flirting shamelessly with anyone with a pair of balls in their pants, still my nemesis and I still hated every red hair on her head. Ya, I’m that stubborn person who rarely changes my first impressions of the people I meet. I’m not proud of that, but I am honest about my shortcomings. She, however, flew over to visit Jerry a couple of times that same summer so she was the better person who could forgive and forget. My brother had a quick wit that got him out of trouble as often as it got into trouble as a kid, and as an adult he was fun to be around when he was in party mode.

Most of my memories of my brother (like the one above) are tied to our growing up years. Memories of summers filled with playing at the cottage, building forts, swimming, exploring in the woods and walking the country side. Of going to small towns on the weekends for carnivals or movies. Back in the city, during the school year, my memories of my brother are centered around ice skating, roller skating, sledding and going to after school music lessons together. Then in our teen years I turned into the kid sister who was crushing on my brother’s friends much to his annoyance, and of working together on our chores until we got to an age where we fought like cats and dogs and my mom separated us. 

Still, one of my favorite memories of my brother is of the two of us singing while doing dishes. In recent years when he was moved into the Memory Care building next door we got to sing together again at three or four music events last summer. Funny how those old words were still “up there” for the taking but remembering what my brother had for breakfast was a task he couldn’t do. 

My brother left this earth on the receiving end of love and compassion and his passing was peaceful. For that, I'm grateful.  

Until Next Wednesday. ©

He never lost his fondness for black cats.

Part of our summer Indian tribe.

 

Jerry's high school graduation.

 

2022??

In between Jerry and the steps behind him used to be all sand 

and it's where the infamous initiation of my cousin into our Indian tribe took place.