On the night of Thanksgiving, just a few weeks ago, I drifted off to sleep feeling the happiest I have ever been in life. I feel thankful for everything in my life. I awoke the next day and went about my ordinary day off from work routine. Then I received a text from my sister asking me to call her. The news was not good, but it was not shocking. My brother’s wife has severe mental health problems. Things got so bad that my sister and her family had to leave my brother’s house and drive home in terrible weather. My brother’s wife is a cruel, selfish, angry person. She is as ugly on the inside as she is on the outside. I honestly do not think it is her fault. She cannot control herself. Her illness goes way beyond the all too common stress and anxiety that many endure.
I once felt deeply sad for my brother. Now, I am in place of acceptance. Yes, I mean to say that I have grieved the loss of my brother. He is gone. He made choices that destroyed our family. While we would joyfully welcome him back; he is never coming back from those choices. It breaks my heart that he is choosing to keep his children in an outright toxic home, but there is nothing that I can do to change things. There is only one way that this will ever end, and I cannot let myself think about it.
It has taken me nearly ten years to go through the five stages of grief of losing my brother. Part of me holds out hope that he will leave the monster and reunite with our family to give his children a happy life, but my heart knows my brother all to well. The most anguishing feeling in all the world is false hope when the reality sets in. I know as I have felt it again and again with my brother.
The conversation that morning with my sister was a long conversation. When I got off the phone, I did not cry. I did not feel anything. I drank my coffee, and I called my love to tell him exactly how broken my family is. Most people do not know that I have a brother. I simply do not talk about him, and I am always talking about my sister and her family, leaving folks with the belief that it is just the two of us.
About a month prior while at dinner with my love and a close friend, I made some off handed remark about my brother, which is unusual. In unison, the two of them stopped, took pause, and looked at me and said, “You have a brother?”
I talked for awhile about my brother to my new love, and then we hung up the phone. I began to think about the plans that the boys and I had for the afternoon in Columbia, South Carolina. We wanted to go to Costco and do some Black Friday shopping, and then we wanted to eat a light lunch and possibly go bowling for a third time. I sat quietly at breakfast by myself, while my boys slept in on their Thanksgiving holiday.
I called my friend Lyn a third time, and she did not answer a third time. She sent me a text the evening before telling me to call her ASAP. It was around midnight when she sent the text, and my guess what that her and her brother were drinking and texting friends. I went back to my room, and I was on the phone with the boys’ dad discussing how we would get Brainy Bird back to Houston for the Christmas holiday. Then a voicemail from the night before appeared on my phone. The voicemail was someone crying and asking me to call them as soon as possible.
I finally got in touch with my friend Aimee. It was then that I learned that at just 46, a long time friend, Lyn’s brother, had passed away. That is why Lyn needed me to call her. Aaron leaves behind his beautiful wife, a son the same age as Brainy Bird, and twin daughters the same age as Little Chirp.
For just a moment, life felt so perfect as I drifted off to sleep that Thanksgiving evening. I woke up on Friday evening to a great deal of sorrow. The Thanksgiving holiday this year reminded of how special moment with those we love is. While my heart grieves the loss of our dear friend, and part of me still grieves the loss of my brother, my faith in our Lord is strong, and my heart is thankful for every moment I had with Aaron and my brother.