My Brother, Rob

The loss of my brother left an emptiness like a stone dropped down a well that expires into the void without a splash. We expect to lose parents and friends along the way, but a younger sibling, fuck. The next vibrations were anger. The waste of it all. It had been telegraphed in advance. Three hundred pounds and a sedentary lifestyle. In the end, the worst of it was hidden from his doctor, friends and family until his body spit in his face.

Rob loved his brandy and beer. He was the chum you wanted at the firepit telling stories. He could voice all of the cartoon characters from our youth. He was a talented musician and great with tools. He took great pride in his skills. Our many years, I supported all of his bands. I went to see him at a disco club in Florida. He was a professional then touring with a Disco Show Band, living on the road in motel rooms. I thought, what a dismal life. Later, I would understand. The packed house danced, cheered and held a collective admiration for their performance. My God, for three hours a night, they’re superstars, that’s why he does it, he lives for that energy.

Rob would leave the road and worked for the global company, Krones for eighteen years. They make gigantic machines that apply labels, think Budweiser. He traveled until his diabetes and weight gain prevented it. The company supported him in his decline.

Then, I received a cry for help from one of a friends.

I found him on a broken futon in his living room, next to a juice pitcher filled with piss. Several of the chairs in the room were not just broken, they were crushed. I would discover that he’d been falling for over a year. Diabetic neuropathy and a gangrenous mummified toe no longer supported him. His femur had been broken at the hip for two weeks. He had found a liquor store that delivered to quell the pain.

I was his closest sibling and we are adult children. We both knew the 911 call had to be his and he made it.

In the hospital, the hip was fixed, but hip people don’t do feet. It took weeks to see a foot doctor. I was in the room with his Diabetes Doctor and the specialists when his socks came off. The smell he emitted, was indeed gangrene as I had feared. She was shocked and embarrassed, the specialists looked grim through their positive bedside manner. I knew that alcoholics protect their dependence with ferocious cunning and stealth. My brand of alcoholism is, negative social consequences. Rob’s brand was, drinking in the face of catastrophic health issues. Rob’s success in his deceit would cost him his life.

It was obvious Rob would need handlers so Kristin and I found a nursing home nearby in Sheboygan. I handled all the medical visits and cleaned out his apartment. Kristin, after a lengthy discovery period, organized his finances and handled the medical and insurance activities. We both became his Financial Power of Attorney and I also took on the medical decisions.

First to come off were two toes and an index finger. Then, a mid-thigh amputation followed later by the other leg, also mid-thigh. The associated infections and the horror of his reality left him mentally useless. A crane was necessary to get him into his fancy new $10,000 electric wheelchair. He would sing a song or do cartoon characters when they loaded him in his chair like a sack of bananas. I would cry in my car.

Rob would have a brief renaissance. He shared that he had complete trust in me and thanked Kristin and I for our support. He became well enough to make his own decisions and even moved into a slightly more independent living arrangement. The Penn Avenue Tap was two blocks away and had wheelchair access. I did not protest. His choices had napalmed his body, there was no point insisting on a clean lifestyle now. I let him find whatever happiness he had left. Research showed that a person with those types of wounds and disease had reduced their remaining years to perhaps five. Rob was gone in less than two.

He would die in an intensive care unit. Nine angels had done their best to save him for over an hour. When I arrived, the decision to stop the attempted resuscitation was mine.

His self-destruction clock had been counting down for years. No doubt, my grief had already begun while he was still alive, but intensified when I witnessed him on the futon. The five stages of grief are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. In Rob’s case, I only experienced a prolonged anger and despair followed by the solace of acceptance.

Rob and I had frank discussions about the what ifs of his condition. He favored cremation and wanted his ashes at our family cabin. Our parents are there, too. We picked a spot for the ashes with a view of the bay were he and I spent summers catching and releasing painted turtles. Perhaps our fondest memories together. I asked, “What about putting half of the ashes in a launcher with an M80 and blowing them across the lake?” As appalling as that may sound to some, he giggled at the idea and our older brother and I did just that. In the end, we celebrate the lives of those who pass and there are no rules.

In the subsequent years, my grief has tempered into acceptance by a host of soft and warm remembrances. I feel them, they’re reflections of his spirit. Turtles, of course, all remind me of Rob. Songs on my IPOD, including his own, bring a smile to my face. He’s in the sunrises at the cabin and the dazzling diamonds of sunlight reflected off the lake on a summer day. And of course, any Warner Brothers Cartoon or Three Stooges episode. Rob’s body is gone, but his spirit remains part of the whole.

The drawing of Rob was done in 1978 as a Christmas present at the height of his powers. I caught his likeness with Prismacolor Pencils on black illustration board. He called his guitar the  ‘Moon Base’. I would revisit the drawing and greet it like a favorite pair of slippers every time I went to his apartment. After his death, the portrait found it’s way back to me. Kristin’s Aunt Mary and her husband visited our home recently and she saw the portrait in my studio. She studied it for a quiet moment, turned to me and simply said, “You loved him.”