Death of a stranger... my brother

Recent, 2012

Death of a stranger…

Not many people know I have / had a brother, mostly because we haven’t spoken to each other in over ten years. He passed away earlier this month, and it wasn’t as though it was entirely unexpected, but it was sad for very complicated reasons. Gary was almost five years older than me, and for most of my life, I tried hard to forge some kind of relationship with him. He rejected those overtures, always. My dad once said that Gary should have been an only child, because he never accepted me from the day I was born. Most siblings outgrow that foolishness, some never do it seems.

Marrying the woman he loved
more than any other in 1980

The people who knew this often troubled man loved him. He had a quality about him that drew people, made them care. He was, in his younger years, a very handsome man. Charming, intelligent, and creative. He could have had it all. At an early age, he developed the addiction that would ultimately destroy his life and leave it in ruins. He was an alcoholic early on, and probably put more toxic substances in his body than most people would survive.

As with all addicts, the need over-ruled all other considerations when it got him firmly in its grasp. The amazing man he was slowly vanished. My brother was an artist, a musician, and a carpenter of considerable talent and skill. When he was straight and sober, he could charm the birds out of the trees as the expression goes, and it wasn’t at all difficult to love and admire him. To enjoy his company, and to care about what happened to him.

Holding his only child, she was 2.

The darker side of this man was one impossible to deal with on any rational level. I think in many ways he was so filled with fear, it paralyzed him and sent him running for someplace to hide. He chose booze and drugs as his escape. He was arrogant, annoying, and his temper was vicious when he was lost to his addiction. I remember once telling him he should treat himself with more kindness, and because he was sober and thinking at the time, he agreed. I think in many ways he was afraid people would somehow discover just how scared he was of his own failures. He covered it up with his arrogant asshole routine. In his clear moments, he saw the loss of the woman he loved more than any other he’d ever be or been involved with, and the loss of his daughter. His only child grew up without him because of his addictions. I’m sure he regretted that deeply.

There are more stories than I can remember, so many countless incidents of pain and heartbreak that drove deep and damaging wedges into our small family. My father died knowing his only son would never find any lasting happiness or direction. Our mother mourned him a long time ago, and always will. I knew him better than he liked, liked him better than he wanted to know. I hope that death has given him the peace he never seemed able to find in his life.