Notes on a Death

Last week, I got a 4am text message from my brother that read, “I love you. Just wanted you to know that. I love Mom, Dad, and Chris, too.” The next morning, I texted him back, telling him, “I love you, too. Call me sometime and we’ll talk.” The text was a little out of the ordinary for my brother (who was never prone to fits of affection as an adult) so I called my father, who was out. I called my mother, intending to mention the text to her…but got sidetracked in conversation and forgot all about it.

He called me two days later, on a Friday. I had just finished previewing a bone marrow biopsy in preparation for sign-out with my attending, when the telephone in the bone marrow room rang. As I picked it up, the 307 area code (Wyoming) registered, and I was more than a little confused. I had given the room number to Chris (who never uses it anyway), but not to anyone else. He must have been really determined if he managed to dial straight into the room where I was sitting instead of having me paged. When I picked up the phone, I heard him sobbing. His voice was thick with tears when he said, “Chelsea, it’s me. It’s Chandler. I’m not doing too good. Are you busy?”

At that moment, I was busy. My attending had just walked in, ready to sign out a bone marrow. So I told my brother that I was not free, but that I did want to talk to him. I promised him that I’d call him back in an hour, once we were all finished with work. I didn’t even say, “I love you.” I just said, “I promise, bud, I WILL call you back. Noon. One hour.”

I did call him back at noon, exactly like I promised, only to find that his phone went straight to a voicemail box that had not yet been set up. Sufficiently worried, I called my father’s phone, only to have my brother’s best friend answer. He started with, “Ken is in the ambulance with Chandler. He took some pills.” I just sort of shrugged to myself, thinking, “Oh Chandler, you asshole – now you’ll have a hospital bill you can’t afford when they fix you up.”

And then I heard the words “a LOT of amytryptyline pills.” The sister in me started praying as hard as I ever have that he had been found in time, before the medication took effect. But the doctor in me knew better – knew, somehow, that I would never see my little brother again. Now is not the time or place for a discussion on amytryptyline, but suffice to say that it is a serious, serious drug with a very narrow therapeutic window. In overdose, it is rapidly fatal. As a pharmacy technician, it’s something my brother (who knew almost as much about pharmaceuticals as I did) would have known.

I don’t know what my brother would have said to me on the telephone. I don’t know if he’d already taken the pills and was calling to say goodbye. I don’t know if he was in crisis and looking for me to talk him down before he did something stupid. I just don’t know. But what I do know is that in some of the final hours of my brother’s life, I was too busy to talk to him – busy with something that could have waited for another half an hour. What I do know is that my last words to him were not, “I love you.” What I do know is that when I got off the phone with him, I was annoyed at him for interrupting my work flow. Because, you see, this wasn’t the first time that my brother had called me, sobbing. It had happened numerous times throughout the years, and almost all of the calls always came at inopportune times (like in the middle of a class, or 3 in the morning, or during a movie.) He sounded no worse than he ever had in the past, and eventually, he’d also always been OK in the past. 9 times out of 10, things would have been fine. I just didn’t realize that this was the 1 time in 10 that I would fail my brother. I thought that when this day dawned, that I would be at peace – that I had already come to terms with the inevitability of this moment – but I guess not.

I’d give almost anything in my life just to be able to reverse time and talk to him – to tell my attending, “Hey, I really need to take this phone call.” But I can’t reverse time. I know, in my heart of hearts, that if he’d already taken the pills, he wouldn’t have told me where to find him. And if I had talked him out of crisis, it would only have been a temporary reprieve – it would have simply happened at another time. There are some kinds of broken that no amount of love can fix.

And so, my little brother, my only sibling, passed away on Friday, July 8th at the ripe old age of 26, just 22 days shy of his 27th birthday.

I’m not sure how one works through something like this. It’s early yet, perhaps too early to think things will ever be OK – but to be honest, I’m not sure they ever will be alright again. I’m not sure how one overcomes the guilt, the despair, the incredible anger (rage?), the tragedy, the loss, the hole in life’s fabric, the utter, senseless waste.

I’m sure that like many so called “suicide survivors” (ha – what a freakin’ joke) these feelings are not unique to me. But I’m not used to having my emotions be this labile, and in addition to the death of my brother, I also find difficulty dealing with these sudden bursts of crushing grief and, sometimes, rage. In some moments, I find myself so utterly angry that if my brother weren’t already dead, I would beat him senseless for being so careless and selfish. But mostly, there’s just sadness – a grief so great that words fail. Guilt is there, too, almost crushing the breath out of me as I walk through the land of “If Only.” I know that this is “normal,” that it is “expected,” but nothing about it feels normal to me.

I’m so angry that he was so cavalier about his life, that he was such a selfish, cowardly bastard that he couldn’t stand up and fight like a man. I’m so angry for the strain that this puts on my family, for the pain that this is causing my parents. I’m so damn mad about the strain that this is putting on my finances, so angry that I just had to spend $1,553.30 that I don’t really have on a pair of plane tickets, so angry that I have to take my leave unpaid, so angry that I have to dip into the “buy a house” savings to cover rent and expenses for August, so angry that my family has to clean up after his latest mess. We’re ALWAYS cleaning up after his messes, but this is the biggest fucking mess of all. I want to scream at him, I want to throw things at him, I want him to stand in front of me so that I can beat him senseless. And when that anger is spent, I want him to stand in front of me so that I can hold onto him tightly and tell him just how very much I love him, make him understand just how much I’ll miss him. I’ll never be able to do any of that. He’ll never be there at Christmas time or any other holiday. I’ll never smell his combination of body odor and cigarette smoke on anything again. I’ll never get to show him Vermont or help him discover the best maple creamies a person can have – which is a shame; he always did love ice cream. As my parents age, he won’t be there to help them (or to help me as I help them). I will never see him again in this lifetime. There are so many things he’ll never do, that WE’LL never do together, that he’ll never be. I never thought grief could crush, but sometimes I can’t even breathe. I lie awake at night, crying and replaying that telephone conversation in my head, praying and silently screaming. I am overwhelmed. I am spent.

I am a Christian, and I believe wholeheartedly that there is a God who loves us and watches over us all. I believe that this life is just a stopping place on our journey, that we are not meant for this world but for someplace so beautiful that it defies imagination. I know that One greater than I defeated death, that the grave can never claim victory. I know without a doubt that I will see my brother again one day, far away though it may seem. I don’t know what happens to our souls when we die – I haven’t a clue – but if they live on after death, I truly hope that my brother found the peace and comfort that he was so desperately seeking. I hope that he can finally know how very special he was, how very much he was liked and loved, how very much he will be missed. I hope that he is able to rest in peace.