When I was 12, my brother died in the hospital. I didn’t get to see him to say goodbye. I was told he would be fine, but the adults in my life really didn’t want me to see him because he was hooked up to so many tubes, wires and machines, and they thought it would upset me. It would have, I’m sure, but it upset me more to have him slip away, unseen, with no closure.
I really was a selfish little asshole when I was 12. I’m not perfect now, but I’m not the self-absorbed know-it-all I was then. My brother and I didn’t get along. He was 19, and really didn’t give a shit what I thought, so I constantly complained about him to my mom. He was “an embarrassment, the black sheep, a bad brother,” on and on. He had a minor arrest for pot and I acted like he had scarred the family name beyond repair. Like I said, I was an asshole.
I was at a friend’s house when he collapsed. My mom, red faced and crying, came and told me he was ill and arranged to have me stay there. He had health problems reaching back to birth, serious heart problems that the doctors thought they had tackled with open heart surgery when he was 2. Come to find out, his heart was just waiting for the right push to completely abandon him. That push came in the form of an old lawn mower that had to be started with a pull cord. My father insisted that the boys use this mower, despite its age and general poor condition. He had been pulling the cord to start it for a good 15 minutes when he came in and collapsed in front of my mom. I missed the screaming, the ambulance, the gradual departure he made from the world until the machines were finally turned off when hope was gone. I stayed at my friends for 3 days, forbidden from visiting the hospital, and then overheard my sister in law telling my friend’s mom that my brother had died. He would never get to see me grow out of my asshole phase. I would never get to apologize for everything I said. Time slowed, and I felt like I was swimming through sludge for the next several months.
My parents divorced shortly after his death. Their already ruined marriage might have kept running on autopilot if my mom hadn’t found courage from her horrible grief and the blame she placed on my father for my brother’s death. It was a relief for my father to be gone. He was a pretty horrible man, and I found out later just how mean, and how physical, he had been with my brothers. As a girl I was apparently sheltered from most of it.
I was ashamed of myself, and I felt like I could never get out from under my guilt. So many times, I imagined myself being able to talk with my brother one last time, to say how sorry I was, to hug him again. A year passed this way, and my sadness lifted a little but didn’t leave me altogether.
It was the middle of the night, very warm as I recall, and I got up to get a glass of water. I walked into the kitchen and stopped, a gasp breaking the silence. My brother sat at the table, his hands folded, his eyes cast downward. He looked up as I approached, and his face showed calm tinged with sadness. Huge sobs rolled up from my throat as I ran to him. He was solid in my hands, and I hugged him for what felt like hours. I sat down next to him and we talked in a way I was never able to talk with him in life. I purged my self of the guilt and shame I had been carrying for so long. We each said how we felt. I tried to ask him questions about death, about where he was, but he refused to answer anything about that. He just shook his head and said he wasn’t allowed. As the sun began to peek above the ground in the window behind him, he said that he wished we had more time. He told me all his hopes and dreams for me and for my future, a future he said he hoped would be happy. He hugged me again and told me I needed to go back to bed. When I asked if I would see him again, he told me that he hoped we would see each other one day. I walked back to bed, glancing back just once to see his face set in a small smile. I fell back to sleep quickly.
In the morning I couldn’t wait to tell my mom what had happened. I found her in the living room, crying over a stack of bills. I started to tell her, but something stopped me. I just couldn’t bring up my brother to her right now. Almost telling became never telling, and his visit was a secret I have kept until now.
I still think about that gift I received, the gift of closure and love. I don’t know if it was real, or a dream, or just me wishing so hard that I believed it happened. I do know that a weight was lifted that night, and while I do still often think of my brother and feel sad for the life he never got to live, I believe that he is still there somewhere, watching me. I think he would be proud of the life I built, the things I have done and the struggles I have conquered. I can still see his face, his smile, at the table of the old farmhouse, as he waved goodbye to me for the last time.