At this time on this day two years ago, I said goodbye to my oldest sibling. My brother Chris had been playing basketball in the gym of his son’s school and suffered a massive heart attack. As I sat with his body in the emergency room, I was told he died before he hit the floor, although later I found that wasn’t quite true. Despite the efforts of his friends and teammates, and the quick-responding EMS crew, he never regained consciousness. He didn’t suffer at all, I was told, but he was gone long before he made it through the ER doors. He was 41.
The call came around 10pm, my dad said Chris had collapsed on the court and he was at the emergency room and the paramedics had to perform CPR. I was addressing Christmas cards, and I remember feeling slightly put out at having to go to the hospital so late at night since he’d likely be awake and even discharged by the next day, but the hospital is right around the corner, and, well, that’s what family does.
As we walked into the ER entrance, my husband and I looked for someone to tell us where Chris was. A male nurse, possibly one of the head nurses, saw us and asked who we were looking for. I told him, and the nurse asked how we were related. Standard ER procedure, I figured. I said I was Chris’s sister. The nurse asked us to follow him, and we did, to a small alcove with chairs slightly hidden from the main waiting room. He asked us to sit down, and that was when I knew something was very, very wrong.
He told us as simply, gently, and compassionately as anyone possibly could have. That moment was so surreal. The words he said didn’t make any sense, and all I could think is, this is what they show on TV. That it was real didn’t sink in. How could it?
After a few minutes, the nurse led us down the hall to a curtained-off room, where my father, my other brother, and his wife all huddled together, arms locked around each other, holding on for dear life.
Inside the room, my sister-in-law on the left, laying across my brother’s still chest with his right hand in hers, red-faced and sobbing; my mother sprawled on the floor on the right, half-kneeling, rubbing his chest, imploring him to wake up, to come back.
I stared at my mother and felt a rising slow fury. I wanted to shake her. I wanted her to stop and be strong for my brother’s widow who had been his wife only hours before. I wanted her to stop tearing my heart out, to stop making it all worse for us. Chris was not going to wake up, it wasn’t a bad dream, and my sister-in-law needed us all. And my mother, she just wouldn’t stop.
I walked in and a priest I hadn’t noticed tried to reassure me it was sudden and painless.
My brother was still dressed in his basketball clothes. Gray shorts with red bike shorts underneath, his black knee brace on his right knee, his white ankle brace laced onto his right ankle. White sweat socks, white gym shoes with blue. His red t-shirt had been cut down the front and was bunched under his shoulders and his upper back. An intubation tube was still covering his mouth, taped to his cheek; an IV in his left arm; wires and adhesive squares on his chest. His hair was messy and too long.
That was by brother lying there, but it so obviously wasn’t. It wasn’t the tubes and wires, it was that whatever made my brother Chris was so noticeably absent. He looked like something you might expect from trying to draw a person you’ve never seen from a written description. This was someone I knew but didn’t know.
I knelt down next to my mother and took my brother’s left hand in both of mine. His skin, his body was still warm to the touch. I have no idea how long we were there. More people came in, my sister-in-law’s brother, sister, and other family. Another priest. A nurse, female this time, to bring a tray of water and snacks. No one ate or drank anything.
There were tears. I cried, stopped, cried again and stopped again. I didn’t want to be touched. I wanted this moment with my brother all to myself. I didn’t want to share it, to share him, with anyone but my blood family. My other brother and I comforted each other as best we could. We tried to be strong for our parents. Our spouses tried to be strong for us. We, the children, tried to be strong for my sister-in-law who had just lost the most important person in the world.
I kissed Chris’s hands, his forehead, his cheek. Sat with my hand on his knee, the one still in the brace, and traced the design on his shoes. At one point we all laughed, sadly but genuinely, that he died with his basketball shoes on. There could be no better or more fitting way for him to go.
Practicalities intruded eventually, as they had to. My sister-in-law was given a booklet to help her take care of things she might not think of: bank accounts, credit cards, mundane life. By law, there would be an autopsy because of how suddenly, how unexpectedly he died. My sister-in-law panicked like a cornered animal when asked what to do with my brother’s jewelry; he wore two gold chains and his wedding ring. The chains, of course they could come off, but he’d never been without his ring since their wedding day. Because more had to be done, she was convinced to take his ring, they could put it back on at the funeral home. My brother gently unclasped the chains around Chris’s neck. When one of the chains wouldn’t come off, he raised up Chris’s head as if he was sleeping and teased it out from among the tubes. My sister-in-law’s mother found lip balm to help ease off Chris’s ring. Someone put in on one of the chains and placed around my sister-in-law’s neck.
The first wave of grief had crashed on us, and as it subsided, we knew we had to go, to leave my brother with his wife, alone, for a time, for the last time. And in kissing him goodbye, in taking his hand again, I could feel that his body had cooled. How completely he was gone.
Death is not kind or pretty. My sister-in-law and mother both wiped a black discharge from my brother’s nose and mouth. Perhaps the intubation tube was too tight on his cheek and cut it. I don’t really know. Perhaps that is just what happens when you die. To see what we saw in a movie or on TV would be gruesome and horrible and frightening. To live it is gruesome and horrible and frightening. I am so grateful I was there, to see the horror and the truth and the beauty and the reality.
Tonight marks the beginning of our third year without him. It’s been a hard time for all of us. Some are managing easier than others. My mother has never been the same and has withdrawn into herself. No one should have to bury a child, let alone their first-born. My dad is quiet, and still keeps his emotions to himself. Chris’ three children are coping, and moving to a new school where they aren’t “the kids whose Dad died” and where they don’t have to go into that gym every day has been a positive thing. My brother and I are moving on. We realize that life has to be lived, no matter what changes, but we both find it easier to say “I love you” to each other now, which we do frequently. My sister-in-law is also moving on, she is seeing someone and I’m glad to see her finding happiness and peace.
I still dread this date every year, but for the first time since that day, I’ve been looking forward to Christmas. Time is healing the wound left by my brother’s passing, and he’s still here with us. My memories of him are all the dearer now, and there isn’t a day that I don’t think about him and miss him.
Chris, I love you.
