June 25, 1977 was the first time my mother ever asked me for a cigarette. I laughed a little and pulled out my pack, gave her one and a book of matches. I studied her profile. With each long draw, she seemed to grow more fierce. She was 67 years old, her oldest son, my brother Paul lay unresponsive in Intensive Care. The neurologist said that if he made it through the first 72 hours he would be a vegetable. They didn’t know my mom. She never said it, but I know she was hell bent on keeping him alive.
When the ambulance Paul was driving was broadsided by a truck, I had just turned 20 years old. I certainly didn’t want to be anywhere near the inside of places like the hospitals and nursing homes where Paul lived. I didn't want to be near places where every bit of food smelled like canned chicken and looked like puss. But I also couldn’t let my aging mother go through this alone. When Paul emerged from the coma and had spent enough time in rehab, he came back to our broken-down, shot gun cottage and my mother. I stayed by her side for a year.
Paul had been bent on killing himself in those years following the accident. Who would want to live in a 24 year old body that had atrophied. Each time he told my mother he was going to end it, she would call me. I'd suck a cigarette the way she had when his life lay in the balance and I would run to the house, thinking I could solve his issues.
The last time it happened, I called his bluff. I had a knife, a rope, a scissors and a bottle of unused Percocet from the dentist. I laid them carefully on the Formica table that was riddled with mustard stains. I told him I could help him. He staggered to his feet, unsteady, grabbed his walker and tried to get away from me. I let him get as far as the stairs and then, I tackled him, pulled him off the steps and shoved him to the ground. I pointed a finger at him and said, "Don't you ever do that again. Your mother doesn't deserve this."
Shortly after that, I left town. I couldn't take any more.
Last September 25th, I went for a walk before heading to the hospital to await Paul’s transfer to a Hospice center. As a writer, I do some of my best writing while I walk. The words poured out of me and into my phone’s voice recorder as I thought about his life.
A life that can’t be remembered without including how my mother fought for him every step of the way until her death in 1996. It often has made me wonder about the existence of God, because she had such power to bring him out of the coma.
I sat beside him last year, an oxygen tube to his nose seemingly useless for his mouth slung open and air going in and out. His stomach muscles pumped and pushed for every breath. He'd laid in a coma for four months after the accident, the tracheotomy tube his breathing path. Years later scar tissue built up and redirected the flow of food to his lungs. No matter how many times we explained to Paul what was happening he still didn’t care, he’d steal food if you didn’t give it to him. Seemed like a death wish to me, but Paul had a certain amount of his mother’s ferocity.
Thinking back over these forty years, much of the time I wanted him to be someone else’s problem. His friend, Tom, changed that for me. Christmas, 2002 I received the first phone call from Tom. He said that my brother was being kicked out of his apartment and could I help. Sadly, at the same time, my only other brother found himself homeless too. And I had just started living a life with a good man, forming a family of our own.
I didn’t want one more tragedy.
I couldn’t explain to this 'Tom' guy about screwdrivers in the palm of my hand, or Whiffle ball bats to the back of the legs, all part of our violent childhood. I couldn’t tell him about my failure to help Paul commit suicide three years after his accident. I really regretted that for so many years. We all might have been better off. But here was a man who invested in Paul, saw something good in him. He also convinced me to be a contact for Paul, a voice for him.
Today, September 25, 2018, marks the one year anniversary of Paul’s death. While our brother/sister history was fraught with so much violence, I'm grateful for Tom pulling me into Paul's life. In the last years of his life, Paul taught me a few things.
Because of his injury, his speech was slow and arduous to listen to, it taught me to be patient.
He loved the Lovin’ Spoonful and Cream and music that ignited a fire in his belly to be better, more. I've adopted that fire in my own way, and on my own time.
He taught me through the years of disability, that there's only one life.
What you make of it is what counts.
And so today, I say his name out loud and proud. I carry his memory, his
funny quirks and quiet words. I carry so much of the goodness of a him.