JUST BECAUSE IT IS CONVENIENT…DOESN’T MAKE IT RIGHT!

This is a sad story….and a long one! Covering many years, decades is more like it! Much more dramatic with a sense of resolve when stated that way! Drama is very real way of life weather we like it or not! ehh?

It encompasses the trials between my older brother and myself…but here we will concentrate on the last two decades (the word again now with a sense of finality)which ended with his death on September 4th 2020 two days before his 70th birthday…

A short history to begin…we were born, raised by and became alcoholics (though I no longer practice drinking (or drugging) for decades now (Ahhh that word again but now it has taken on another characteristic…hope!) alcoholism caused us both many problems and for Bob he lost everything…his contractor’s license 1st…his wife 2nd…the love and respect of his children 3rd …the gift of friendship 4th….and his self-respect along the way…these are the facts of an all too common story….

So, at his 50-year mark and my 1st year into my new life we reconnect, and we have more than a few conversations about him getting sober and moving forward with his life…but for Bob it seemed impossible… always a bitter man. Some of it coming from the treatment he got from our father and now unwilling to accept the responsibility of his actions and basically becoming his father in thought, never willing to admit that he played a part in his own downfall of his life. with his family, with his friends…always a reason why, it was circumstances or others at fault…again an all-too-common story…did I mention a long story? I will condense a bit to hopefully keep your attention!

Bob age 55… gets kicked out of his last friend’s house as he no longer can find (or attempts too) work to pay his bills…Jonny his (sober don’t you know who I am!) younger brother(that be me!) Feels like he can rescue his brother and fix him right up! (That story about me is for another time!) So I head out and pack up the last of his belongings and bring him to the house in San Bernardino! Yeah for me…I’m a good guy! Right…like I said another time!

All sorts of rules…all sorts of plans…a little bit of love a little bit of compassion…all sorts of resentments…so the story unfolds…for the next 8 years he get kicked out of my house more than a few times for all the reasons you can think of…he ends up living in a van I paid for…getting robbed often of his ssi $(which was one of the things I got done to “fix” him)…I get him into a sober living…that was not one…his health is deteriorating his mind is fading fast…his seizures are more frequent…with true compassion, I think, I try again to help him(by this time I knew that it was not my place or right to fix anyone, that is but for myself! Be it known that I am still working on that!) …I have grown during this period and realize that I needed to keep my expectations realistic…and I will admit that his health, and deteriorating cognitively made it a lot easier… Fast forward…my life moves on and I leave San Bernardino, and let my oldest son assume the responsibility for taking care of Bob as part of our agreement to move back into the house (another back story!) Things go from bad to worst with Bobs wellbeing, I need to give my son and his girlfriend credit and respect…They stepped it up especially during the last 2 years…Bobs doctor stated that he needed more than in home care but finding a place and getting more state help was hard to come by…then covid-19 and no hope of placement in a facility …Bob could no longer control his body functions, walking was difficult, and he was getting more and more bitter…Zac held in there and did what needed to done with a sense of dignity…I will never forget that it was him that helped Bob the most at the end…I don’t know if I could have done as well as he did…so now the end of the story…Bob died while taking a shower after Zac had fed him a cheese burger and the promise of a cigarette after his shower…both his favorite things to have…checking on Bob…he had collapsed and Zac having just completed his EMT training tried to revive him as the paramedics were called…Bob I think died happy he was with the two people that helped him and genuinely cared about him …I found out later that is was a good conversation and laughter over the cheese burger and promise of a cigarette, for that I am content…

So Bob is gone and nobody cared…his kids, sans one, did not even return my calls or facebook invites…I had tried to reach out to them over the years as Bob got sicker and more frail…but the past keep them all from even considering letting the hurt go…and acknowledging that no matter what he was there father and he was dying…very sad and makes one think on ones actions in everyday life…so Bob is in limbo at the morgue and my mind starts playing with me…why should I do anything…didn’t I buy him a spray paint machine to go back to work? And the van which he pissed off..oh yeah I got him his SSI so he could live?

Didn’t I have my son take care of him in his last years? Why should I do anything about paying for his death! Have not I spent enough over the years? I can just not claim the body, like everyone else that doesn’t care, they will just cremate him and toss him in the unclaimed dead people site that nobody cares about…its legal I’m not doing anything wrong…how inconvenient that I have to take care of everything…and the justification for not doing anything keep going around in my head. But thank God it did not penetrate my heart…all over the cost of a simple cremation, I am ashamed of my initial response…needless to say I could have done nothing because it was convenient, who would of cared, obviously not his own family, all our sisters have been gone for a number of years…I am the last one…Bob now sits in a boxed urn in my little house…tucked away in a corner of a cabinet alone and forgotten by all it seems… his only possessions at the time of his death were his wallet which had his ID, SScard, and medicare card…I had a good cry when I laid them out on saw Bob smiling a healthy, solid smile on the ID, not the most common of occurrences with him…it reminded me that not all the past with my older brother was a burden or only problems or only inconvenient…he sits next to old DL of mine, above my laptop with other items of interest that have meaning…that have had an impact on my life…that help me remember that all the things I do, think, say, to myself and especially too and for others, make up who I am and what I strive to be…BTW that old DL of mine sitting next to Bob…is one of me smiling too…