My husband and I returned Sunday night from a week in the town where my brother lived. We talked to police, lawyers, neighbors, insurance companies. We had my brother cremated and brought the ashes back. There was no will, so I'll have to return for a hearing to determine if I am the next of kin. So there was and is a lot to do. But I tried not to get too busy, not be numbed to what was happening, though I was in shock.
I saw the scene. My brother shot himself between the eyes. The house took a week to be detoxified, because the body was there for possibly six weeks. It was the post office that notified the police. No one missed him. I feel great sadness about his aloneness. But his note to me explained he was deteriorating in health and feared being an invalid. His note was amazing. The model of right speech, as it was distinctively his voice, he was able to joke and be business like and generous and loving. There was no anger anywhere in the pages. He told me he loved me. He was lucid, at least when he wrote the note. He took full responsibility for his life and death. He lived independently, which was all important to him after twenty years long ago as an alcoholic. There was no sign he drank in the last 30 years.
I've been grieving for him since I was 19 and he was 16. Our parents tried every way to help. I tried. He had so much potential and I hope he had joy in his life. He never lost his sense of humor. And if his notes and letters were mostly fantasies, they harmed no one and perhaps gave him a door into the life he wished he had had.
We'll have a family ceremony here down the road. We will treasure our memories of him. He was a courageous man. He woke up every morning and chose not to drink. He chose not to hurt others or ask them to draw into his pain. He blamed no one. He didn't even blame bad luck. He deserved better, as we all do. He will be missed.
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