My friend Julie has written a blog entry about her friend, who was found by a passing motorist after hitting his head while skateboarding. He was pretty out of it - he suffered a serious head injury, and because of the kindness of a stranger, is now recovering in the hospital.
This story brings to mind something in my personal life, but I'm not sure how much to say... it concerns me but it's not my life - and I don't know if telling someone else's story here is the right thing to do. Well, here I go, anyway.
My oldest brother (I have two brothers and a sister, all older) has been having a hard time. In vague terms: a lot of his problems are self-inflicted. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see how or why he's gotten to this place. It's been very hard to see him this way, especially because I look up to him. He has always been my style guide, my role model, since I was a little kid. I used to sneak into his room and steal his clothes (in the 80s: his Polo and alligator shirts, his Edwin jeans), his records (Talking Heads, Go Gos, Depeche Mode). I thought his life was so much more interesting than mine ever could be. He had cool things, he went places: he was friends with women who looked or dressed nothing like me or my sister (they wore heels and makeup, they had extravagant hairdos and fake fur coats): he was cool.
Because he is the oldest, I know he has been afforded some breaks, and because he is charming and lovable he has probably been able to hide his problems from his family and friends. For a long time, I think he hid behind his perfect exterior. Or maybe we're at fault for not looking behind that "perfect" exterior. And when he is not charming and lovable, we shy away from upsetting him, because his anger gets ugly, and no one wants that. There's a contradiction there but I'm going to move on instead of make sense of it.
I know for sure that he's in financial trouble. I know for sure that he was depressed. He's had a few health problems. For awhile there we didn't know where he was or who he was with or what he was doing, and that was very, very scary. The few times I did hear from him, he said he was on the street, or in a shelter, but I think he was staying with an old friend. I'm not sure he isn't above a little dramatic storytelling. I hope.
But then he showed up at my parents' house, and after a long period of just staying in his room, he started coming out and interacting with my family. This was right about in the middle of my mom's first round of chemotherapy, and we all were worried about him, but tried to just put the focus on her and let him be.
I think I've mentioned before that my mom is a pretty serious Christian. She's the kind of person who thinks everyone would be happier and better off if they'd just go to church. She believes in heaven and hell, speaking in tongues, faith healing... all the fire and brimstone stuff. Needless to say, she's pretty conservative, politically speaking, and she has no problem telling you what she thinks, and what she thinks you should be thinking. She worries, maybe too much, about all of us who probably aren't going to make it to the Nice Place. Every day she gets up and sits in her little armchair stuck in a cramped corner of her room, and she prays. This is real stuff to her, and she takes the bible, God, and Jesus very seriously. During this time for her - while her own health problems were at the forefront of everyone's minds, she was hit hard by what's going on with my brother. My dad too, but my dad is subtler about showing it.
(One day I'll write more about my dad, but for now, I'll say that he is the sweetest, kindest, most generous, hardest-working man I have ever known. He's been so good to my mom during her therapy, and he still has time to mow three lawns, make things for his friends, and help out around the house. You couldn't ask for a better dad.)
Then things with my brother started looking up. He started talking to us, and was around the house more, and seemed more himself again. He started calling his friends and taking care of himself. We heard him laugh again, and he opened up a little about things. And I think he started going to meetings. Nobody wanted to ask too many questions, and he didn't shout it from the rooftops. He started saying things like, "I have to go to a meeting." Before I realized what these meetings were, I asked him once how often he had to go, and he told me, "I could go everyday if I wanted to." I think he was going everyday, too; whatever they do at those meetings, it was helping him. We could tell.
The thing is, my mom and my brother have, even when things are perfect, a pretty precarious relationship. My mom has no problem telling us how to "fix" our lives, or what we should do with them. I think all mothers are probably like that… and I know she does it because she worries about us, and because she loves us. Her language, her methods are hard to take, but I mean, of course she loves us. But sometimes you can hear, "You should," or "You need to," one too many times. At what point does it become my own life, and my own problems, and my own solutions? So in a way, I understand if he has a hard time with her. But at the same time, I don't understand someone who can't see past their own problems and see the person who loves them the most for what they are: trying to help, trying to protect, maybe even trying to understand something they can never understand.
And then, with the chemotherapy, my mom just hasn't been herself. Sometimes she has great days, and she's in a good mood, and things are almost fine. But some days, especially after nights when she couldn't sleep, she's irritable, or just doesn't feel good, and with this crazy heatwave, I know she's uncomfortable. The cancer treatment has been hard on her, even though she's holding up remarkably well. For the most part I think she's really benefiting from her strong religious beliefs, but some days are just not good days, no matter what you believe.
So she and my brother - last week they had a spat, and my brother took off (my parents went to San Diego, and when they got home, he wasn't there), and we haven't seen or heard from him since.
All of us in my family have pretty sharp tongues. We've all been guilty of saying something without thinking, and hurting feelings in the process. We hardly ever find fault with ourselves when that happens or even realize what we've done until it's too late - I know I've caused some fights with Patrick because my brain doesn't catch up with my mouth, and it took me a long time to realize that it's unfair to think he'll just take it and forgive me. I do try to think first and speak second, but it's not always easy. So I think this is what happened with them - one, or both, of them said something they probably shouldn't have. And now he's gone again.
The thing is, they were probably both wrong, or maybe both right.
And so the bad thoughts battle the good thoughts, and sometimes the good thoughts win. It can't possibly be as bad as the bad thoughts get (that he's hurt, that he's lost, that he's dead). I know that it's hard, whatever he's fighting. I know that my brother is a good person. I know that envisioning terrible things doesn't help him, that it just means that I don't have faith that he'll make it. But it's hard not to worry. So: I worry. And I hate seeing my mom and dad worry, too.
I hope that someone might be with him now, someone who can see him for who he really is, and the wonderful person he can be, and I hope that person says the right things, the things we as his family can't tell him, because we're stubborn, because we're hurt, because we're scared. And if you happen to meet my brother, or someone like him, maybe you can be a better listener than we have been. Show him and tell him how valuable he is as a human being, that his family loves him, that whatever is going on can and will end.
And then I hope he listens.
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