My last brother, John, quietly slipped from his earthly bonds this afternoon and is free of the disease that devastated him and three brothers and our father. He is the last one.
He was surrounded by his wife, 16 year old son and my mom. I was at work and met my mom at home ( who was driven there by my husband.) He had run out of treatment options, couldn’t keep food down and his quality of life was everyone else’s living nightmare. He had hospice since Tuesday. What angels!
What a wasted, sad life. He was a quiet intellectual who taught me chess and never let me win at monopoly. Hell of a thing for someone to do who is 7 years older than you, but he had three older siblings that he had to put up with doing the same thing to him, so I kinda get it. He was an altar boy until he was a senior in High school and the nuns in elementary school use to call me “John” all the time which was quite annoying. He was an Eagle Scout and loved going to summer camp. Received a many full scholarships to Big Ten colleges, but chose local ( Wayne State, to be at home.) Brilliant and scholarly, if he wasn’t waysided by Muscular Dystrophy, he would have completed his medical degree, instead of opting to go into nursing, which he did for a few years until it was too much.
John and I were complete opposites and he use to try to crank my chain when I was a kid to get me to beleive in shit that wasn’t possible. The most memorable was when we were dropping him off at boy scout camp and I was following him and his buds around like a puppy, he grabbed a hand full of a plant alongside the trail and said to me, ’ Stay back, this is poison ivy!" and I ran screaming back to my parents. It took me years to parse that wasn’t poison ivy.
So, on John’s last Thanksgiving past, he had what I called a day pass from the nursing home that he had been in for many months and was happily ensconsced at his house, in his chair, yelling (mumbling) at his dog to shut up, and torturing us with watching Mary Poppins on one of the free tv stations. Instead of a 60-80 minute movie, it was like 4 hours of hell. It was fucking torture and I complained quite vigorously to Mr. Yoder that there was this new fangled thing called betamax that allowed you to watch movies at a faster rate than commercial interruptions and junk. I could have done a puppet show with my socks that would have been faster, with more accurate accents, but John enjoyed smirking at the torture and we laughed at our pain and our selves. Next to the TV there is a black and white photo of Dad. Dad died in 1975, when I was 9. My memories of him are scant.Brilliant mind, engineer, gap between his front teeth, did some work for NASA on loan from Chrysler. Out of the blue John mumbles, " You know Dad had a full scholarship in football to Ohio State?"
Clearly remembering the poison ivy incident, I rebutted him, " No Wai! He went to U of Detroit!"
“Yeah, he did.”
“Nu uhhhhh”
“Uhhh huuuuh…”
“MOOOOOOM! John says Dad had a full football scholarship to Ohio State!” I yelled to her in the kitchen.
“Yeah, " she thought for a moment. " He went for two years, then the war started and when he came out, finished at u of Detroit.”
“See?” smirks John. " Told you."
“I’ve been on this planet 44 years and this is the first time you tell me this?” I protested. " Sheeeesh!"
My mom, " I guess it slipped my mind."
It explains my secret love of Ohio State that never made any sense, especially living in Michigan. And I’m not even genetically related at all. Weird.
A thirty two year time span from diagnosis to the last one dying. When Mom told me the diagnosis I was 12 and my very first thought was, " I’m going to bury mom alone." That is a hellova thought for a 12 year old girl to have.
John, Mark, Tom and Jim, Dad (and Mom) all got the shaft. I am so profoundly sorry. No one family should have to have such a tragedy as theirs. I wish I could cry, I probably will at the viewing at seeing the what-ifs for the last time be squeezed out of my heart.
" )