Never Can Say Goodbye

  Not long ago, my younger brother, Timothy died from AIDS. I received my share of sympathetic gestures from friends and well-wishers; flowers, plants, fruit baskets, kind notes. But these expressions of empathy gave me very little comfort. How could I possible be consoled, when with every breath I drew I was trying to absorb the reality that my brother was dead?
 
  He was only twenty-five years old. He deserved better. He had just started living, only just begun to pull his life together. He was intelligent, fun-loving, a good brother. Tim was a kind, and thoughtful person. He attended church regularly, and even made sure that younger members of our extended family attended as well.
 
  In a family of nine, he, my two youngest sisters and I were the closest. Because we were the last four kids “left at home,” that seemed only natural.
 
  I was the first son to go away to college, and I am sure, although he never said it, my mother probably wore him out with reminders to follow his older brother’s fine example. But Tim had ideas of his own. Even though he did to go to college for two years, he dropped out to find his own path. He started his own small hair salon and was doing well.
 
  It was his apartment I stayed in whenever I came home. It was one of the few places I felt completed relaxed and comfortable. I often wonder if that was because we were both clean-freak Aries babies.
 
  When I received word that Tim was in a hospital dying of AIDS, I was immediately struck by a wave of helplessness. I rushed home to spend whatever time I could with him, fully expecting to see him as I last remembered – tall, laughing, glowing with health. I was led into the isolation ward to see him and was instructed on how to put on the protective gloves, gown and footwear. Seeing him hooked up to all those tubes and wires was shocking, heartbreaking, and made me mad as hell. I wanted to rip it all away and carry him back home. As he was down to not much more than 100 pounds, it wouldn’t have been too hard.
 
  We talked, that is I talked to him, and he nodded or shook his head, for as long as his strength held out. All he could manage at his best was to write in a shaky scrawl, that yes, he loved me too. He died about a week later.
 
  At his memorial service, I tried to speak about the goodness of Tim’s life, about the admirable type of young man he had turned into, and how our parents would have surely been proud of him. Words failed me. It was too soon, and I was too angry.
 
  The same thoughts kept whirling around and around in my brain: It’s so damn unfair! It isn’t right! This is in no way just! Where the hell was all that “Divine Justice” that I’d been told about since I was a child? Why wasn’t God there to watch over my baby brother and keep him from dying? How the hell does this death figure into the Creator’s Cosmic Plan? I had too many questions, too much pain, and no ready answers.
 
  I cried a lot for Tim – long and frequently. Yet somehow, I felt that something, some part of my mourning was left undone. This seemed only to increase my anguish. However, the last vivid memory of my brother occurred the week after his memorial service.
 
  I dreamed I met my brother. He appeared to me the way he looked when he was only about nine or ten years old. As his family-appointed guardian and babysitter, it was a time I remembered well. Tim asked me if it hurt to see him again, now that he was dead. I said yes, and I missed him very much, and I started to cry. He went on to say that from where he was now, he could look down on me, as well as visit all the places our family had lived while we were growing up. He said he was in touch with our mother (who had died some six years earlier). She was impressed that I was realizing my dream of becoming a writer. The exact phrase Tim said was, “You were always the one who was heavy at the typewriter,” an expression he typically used. Suddenly the pleasure and pain of receiving a message from my mother, delivered by my deceased brother, became too much. I fought my way out of the dream and clawed into wakefulness. My pajamas were drenched with tears.   
 
  The experience left me physically and spiritually drained. But as the days passed, I began to experience a sense of completeness in my mourning. I realized that until this dream visitation, I had never said aloud, “I miss you.” Speaking those words was something I needed to say.
 
  I will never completely recover from Tim’s death. But I am told by people who have experienced a similar loss that while the jagged hole in my heart will never heal, it won’t throb so much after a time. Love, particularly family love, does not end at the grave. It can reach out and touch you with warmth and caring for years.
 
  Of all the realities that I ever imagined for myself, none included surviving the death of my baby brother. And yet, with his help, somehow I have. Not easily to be sure. It’s ironic that while I used to watch out for him, Tim is now watching over me. And sometimes, that knowledge eases my sleep. Thanks, baby bro. I love you, too.