I am in a bit of a quandry at the moment,I have seen my brother this morning for the first time in well it has to be eight/nine months.He walked past me with no acknowledgement at all,fair enough we were on a crossing going in opposite directions,but as I went to say hello,he had his face turned slightly so the moment passed and the words never passed my lips,it wasn`t that he didn`t speak,my family are given to moments such as these,being the black sheep I rarely see any of them even when they come into 'town'.But,my brother ( this one anyway) and I had been close at one time,when his wife died suddenly leaving him with a 10 month old baby to raise I stepped in and helped where i could,eventually bringing the child up as one of my own till he reached the age of twelve,when he went back to live with his dad full time.My brother did see my nephew,he went home every other weekend to be with him and he came to visit him through the week etc.The main problem was and always has been the fact that my brother drank/drinks.While married to Heather he was doing ok,she kept him to a limit and it looked like it was working,then she became ill,turned out she had Gall stones,they wouldn`t operate due to her um,size,so they put her on a special diet.Heather and I were not best buds,we in fact had only just started speaking again some six weeks before she died,this was due to the fact that her and my brother had fallen out with me over something my ex-husband had done the previous year at thier wedding.A wedding I was unable to attend due to being released from hospital that same morning under strict instuctions that I stay at home and rest.But for some reason they held me responsible for the obnoxious way my ex behaved!
Anyway they put her on this diet,which she didn`t keep to,and so one day collapsed in pain and was rushed into hospital.The hospital concluded ( wrongly as it turned out) that she was suffering from no more than bad digestion and sent her home.that was on the weekend,at the beginning of the week she collapsed again and was rushed back in,this time they discovered that the Gall Bladder had for some reason disintegrated and dispersed Gall stoned around her insides,one of which had lodged against the Pancreas and was in effect killing this organ.There was by this time nothing they could do,her organs were beginning to fail one by one and it was only a matter of time,she was now on life support and all we could do was wait.She died on the friday,she never regained consciousness from the first day.
Heather was an only child and needless to say her parents were devastated,I sat with them for hours and just let them talk,the funeral came and went and things for us got back to a semblance of nomality,of course for my brother they didn`t but we took it in turns to go and see him and check that there was food in and make sure the little one was ok.The one thing that had been uppermost in our minds was the drinking.When this had happened his friends had each gone to see him and of course they took with them a bottle or two and beer etc.What else do you do? What can you say? Just let him get drunk and get it all out.But there comes a time when people stop coming and bringing stuff,and they get tired of being a shoulder to cry on,and the general consensus is that you should be getting over it by now and getting on with things,but as anyone who has lost someone close knows it doesn`t happen that way.Left alone with no good buddies to help and only us when we could find time from our own daily lives he turned back to the drink.The times in those first eighteen months that we tried to help him stop,the times that we have gone and cleaned the house and pointed out how it was affecting the child,the pushing him to go get a job so he could focus on something other than himself and his grief.And it worked in the end,he came to me and he asked me if he got a job would I have his son while he worked,of course without question.Then it became apparent that him picking him up after work wasn`t feasible if he was working over,taking the child home at ten at night wasn`t good for the child,so he stayed with me all week and went home at weekends.He eventually gave up his house and went back home,the child stayed with me.Every weekend became fortnightly and I raised his son with my own children,untill he went back to live with his dad at the age of twelve.
At that time we lived next door but one to each other,and we saw a lot of each other.I even stayed there for six weeks while in the transition period from moving out of rented and into my own house.And right up to three years ago his is how we were,then I moved again,and we saw less of each other.And still the drinking and the depression were there.He kept giving up,he kept going into hospital through falling and not eating properly and each time i was there visiting,taking him what he needed,etc etc.Then one day I told him I couldn`t go on being his prop,he had to stop or he would kill himself.He promised he would,he went to the doctors,he got on a programme and he was doing so fine.Last summer he tried to kill himself!I hadn`t seen him for several months but I wasn`t worried because every time he sobered up and got a job he cut me off.It took the family three days to tell me what he had done,I contacted my nephew as I was at work at the time,he said odnt come on till tomorrow,ok fine,so I rang the day after,apparently they were moving him to a hospital in Leicester because he was on life support and they were going to try this new and innovative treatment whereby they replace the blood with oxygenated blood and eventually then you can breath without aid.All the time he was in Leicester when the rest of the family went to see him( just my mother and sister) I was not invited to go,when I rang to ask if I could go with them that weekend,they werent going,they went on weekends they knew I couldn`t go.I rang the hospital every day,bet they were sick of me!Then I was told he was being sent back here to our hospital as he was now breathing freely for two to three hours at a time.It was made plain that my nephew didn`t want me to visit,so I didn`t just phoning every day to make sure he was ok.I have not seen him untill today since he came home.And I couldn`t believe how bad he looks he now walks with a stick,I knew he did but have only just seen it,he is drinking again,apart from the fact that I could smell it as he passed,my mother had already told me some time ago.Why do I not feel guilty for not defying my nephews wishes and going to see him?
Why is it that all I felt today was pity for what he has done to himself?
This is my brother,I helped him through his hardest times,yet it was like looking at a stranger.And that makes me sad.