Lost and Found: My Brother, My Faith
“…My power works best in your weakness.” --2 Corinthians 12:9
“Hi Irv, it’s Gail. I just wanted to ask if it was okay for me to come and see you.” As I spoke to my brother’s answering machine, my palms sweated, the receiver shook in my hand and my heart fluttered like a caged bird. “I know you’re sick and…” Then he picked up, belligerent and spewing accusations cultivated by a lifetime of emotional illness.
“Let me save you the trip, Gail. NO! I do not want to see you. I do not want you to come here. Why would I want someone who has ruined my life, cost me my job and my children’s respect to visit me? Why would I want to see someone who has plunged a knife through my chest?
His words hurtled at my heart like a shot put. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”
“Okay! You told me!” Click.
I hadn’t spoken to my brother in seven years, since his third major heart attack. That conversation sent me to bed for two days. When I found out through my niece that he had esophageal cancer, I had hoped the prognosis would temper his anger. But I had to remind myself that it wasn’t just anger. It was a spirit darkened by demons that he couldn’t battle alone.
My brother suffered from anxiety and depression since he was fourteen. My parents had tried to get him help, but he would never cooperate. On the advice of his high school guidance counselor, they enlisted Irving in the army when he was seventeen. And the structure did him good. He earned his GED, learned his trade as an airplane mechanic and met and married his wife. After the army, he joined the National Guard, even taught survival tactics. But as stalwart a soldier as he was, he was not equipped for the war that raged within him.
The afternoon of that phone call, it took hours before my sympathetic nervous system allowed the grainy memories to filter in. I saw myself teaching him to dance to the Bristol Stomp in his attic bedroom, felt my socks catching on the plywood floor. I smelled grass on the wind as he rode me on the handlebars of his bicycle. I watched him stretch out under the dashboard of my ‘65 Ford and install the eight-track cassette player, heard the Young Rascals sing, “It’s a Beautiful Morning.” I ached for the brother, for the hope those days held. And, with the awkwardness of sharing intimacies with a stranger, I prayed. Please God, make him let me see him, make him know that all I ever did was love him.
A few weeks later, after Irving was hospitalized, my sister, Betty, called. She is a practicing nurse, and a born-again Christian. “Gail, I spoke with Irv’s doctors and he doesn’t have much time left. I know he doesn’t want to see any of us, but I’ve prayed about it, and I’m going. Even if he won’t see me, at least I can be there for his family. I’m not saying that you should go. I just wanted you know what I’m doing.”
Even after that last phone call, I had debated going to see him. Otherwise, I’d never see him again. But I wanted to respect his wishes, didn’t want to force myself on him, especially in his weakened condition. But I trusted my sister’s medical knowledge. And what, at the time, I thought were her gut instincts. I found out later that it was way more than instincts. So I called my younger sister, April, and we both decided to join Betty.
By the time we got to the hospital, Irving had been quarantined. The cancer had spread to his lungs, where he had developed a rare infection that hadn’t yet been diagnosed. He required oxygen and visitors had to wear surgical masks.
When my niece told my brother we were there, at first he refused to see us. Then she said something settled over his face, smoothed his clenched jaw and squinted eyes. As she came out of his room pulling the mask over her head, tears spilled down her cheeks. “He said he’ll see you.”
In the small anteroom, she showed us how to properly fit the mask. It covered the mouth snugly beneath the chin, but had to be pinched at the top to securely cover the nose. It looked like a duck’s bill, and I felt every bit the prey. As we entered his room, everything I’ve ever feared crept up my legs, grabbed my heart and squeezed.
My brother’s burly six foot frame loomed over the shrunken man hunched on the edge of the bed. His nose and mouth were encased in a plastic mask, pajama pants ballooned around his lap. A hospital gown, draped on hanger bones, covered the electrodes pasted to his chest. Others were fastened to his ears. All were hooked to a monitor that displayed his vital signs in blips of primary colors. My stomach pitched as if I were falling.
He began the familiar, dreaded way, oxygen-fed accusations squeaking beneath his mask. Suffocating with loss beneath mine, I muffled, “Irving, I love you. I’ve always loved you.” Then he quieted and looked at me, wide-eyed, like a child. And magnified behind the lenses of his glasses, I witnessed the demons drowning in the clear, blue-green Mediterranean of his eyes. In a moment that will always be in the present tense, he said, “I love you, too, Gail. I’ve always loved you. Sometimes I just didn’t know how to act. So I’d lash out. I’m sorry if I ever hurt you. I never meant to.” And he held out his hand to me. I took it in both of mine, then reached around his bony shoulders and hugged my brother for the first time in seven years. Each of my sisters did the same.
Over the next three days, we rebuilt the nests in each other’s hearts. Then Irving was placed on a respirator. Three weeks later, he died. And the rage-filled pain was visceral. I felt teased, cheated. Why was he given back, only to be taken away?
Miraculously, the answer came from my brother. An article by Charles Stanley, “The Blessings of Brokenness,” was found in Irving’s study. These passages were highlighted, as if by the sun:
“God will break and keep on breaking us until all resentment, hostility, anger and self importance have been broken out of our lives….Often as people struggle with terminal disease, the outer body literally seems to waste away, yet if they are willing to turn to God and to submit completely to Him and trust Him with their lives, the inner beauty and spiritual strength begins to develop that far out shadows and far outweighs anything happening in the physical realm.”
And the plates of the earth shifted inside me. Rage became gratitude. Doubt became belief. And God, who had always seemed as far away as eternity, became as close as a prayer.
“…My power works best in your weakness.” --2 Corinthians 12:9
“Hi Irv, it’s Gail. I just wanted to ask if it was okay for me to come and see you.” As I spoke to my brother’s answering machine, my palms sweated, the receiver shook in my hand and my heart fluttered like a caged bird. “I know you’re sick and…” Then he picked up, belligerent and spewing accusations cultivated by a lifetime of emotional illness.
“Let me save you the trip, Gail. NO! I do not want to see you. I do not want you to come here. Why would I want someone who has ruined my life, cost me my job and my children’s respect to visit me? Why would I want to see someone who has plunged a knife through my chest?
His words hurtled at my heart like a shot put. “I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”
“Okay! You told me!” Click.
I hadn’t spoken to my brother in seven years, since his third major heart attack. That conversation sent me to bed for two days. When I found out through my niece that he had esophageal cancer, I had hoped the prognosis would temper his anger. But I had to remind myself that it wasn’t just anger. It was a spirit darkened by demons that he couldn’t battle alone.
My brother suffered from anxiety and depression since he was fourteen. My parents had tried to get him help, but he would never cooperate. On the advice of his high school guidance counselor, they enlisted Irving in the army when he was seventeen. And the structure did him good. He earned his GED, learned his trade as an airplane mechanic and met and married his wife. After the army, he joined the National Guard, even taught survival tactics. But as stalwart a soldier as he was, he was not equipped for the war that raged within him.
The afternoon of that phone call, it took hours before my sympathetic nervous system allowed the grainy memories to filter in. I saw myself teaching him to dance to the Bristol Stomp in his attic bedroom, felt my socks catching on the plywood floor. I smelled grass on the wind as he rode me on the handlebars of his bicycle. I watched him stretch out under the dashboard of my ‘65 Ford and install the eight-track cassette player, heard the Young Rascals sing, “It’s a Beautiful Morning.” I ached for the brother, for the hope those days held. And, with the awkwardness of sharing intimacies with a stranger, I prayed. Please God, make him let me see him, make him know that all I ever did was love him.
A few weeks later, after Irving was hospitalized, my sister, Betty, called. She is a practicing nurse, and a born-again Christian. “Gail, I spoke with Irv’s doctors and he doesn’t have much time left. I know he doesn’t want to see any of us, but I’ve prayed about it, and I’m going. Even if he won’t see me, at least I can be there for his family. I’m not saying that you should go. I just wanted you know what I’m doing.”
Even after that last phone call, I had debated going to see him. Otherwise, I’d never see him again. But I wanted to respect his wishes, didn’t want to force myself on him, especially in his weakened condition. But I trusted my sister’s medical knowledge. And what, at the time, I thought were her gut instincts. I found out later that it was way more than instincts. So I called my younger sister, April, and we both decided to join Betty.
By the time we got to the hospital, Irving had been quarantined. The cancer had spread to his lungs, where he had developed a rare infection that hadn’t yet been diagnosed. He required oxygen and visitors had to wear surgical masks.
When my niece told my brother we were there, at first he refused to see us. Then she said something settled over his face, smoothed his clenched jaw and squinted eyes. As she came out of his room pulling the mask over her head, tears spilled down her cheeks. “He said he’ll see you.”
In the small anteroom, she showed us how to properly fit the mask. It covered the mouth snugly beneath the chin, but had to be pinched at the top to securely cover the nose. It looked like a duck’s bill, and I felt every bit the prey. As we entered his room, everything I’ve ever feared crept up my legs, grabbed my heart and squeezed.
My brother’s burly six foot frame loomed over the shrunken man hunched on the edge of the bed. His nose and mouth were encased in a plastic mask, pajama pants ballooned around his lap. A hospital gown, draped on hanger bones, covered the electrodes pasted to his chest. Others were fastened to his ears. All were hooked to a monitor that displayed his vital signs in blips of primary colors. My stomach pitched as if I were falling.
He began the familiar, dreaded way, oxygen-fed accusations squeaking beneath his mask. Suffocating with loss beneath mine, I muffled, “Irving, I love you. I’ve always loved you.” Then he quieted and looked at me, wide-eyed, like a child. And magnified behind the lenses of his glasses, I witnessed the demons drowning in the clear, blue-green Mediterranean of his eyes. In a moment that will always be in the present tense, he said, “I love you, too, Gail. I’ve always loved you. Sometimes I just didn’t know how to act. So I’d lash out. I’m sorry if I ever hurt you. I never meant to.” And he held out his hand to me. I took it in both of mine, then reached around his bony shoulders and hugged my brother for the first time in seven years. Each of my sisters did the same.
Over the next three days, we rebuilt the nests in each other’s hearts. Then Irving was placed on a respirator. Three weeks later, he died. And the rage-filled pain was visceral. I felt teased, cheated. Why was he given back, only to be taken away?
Miraculously, the answer came from my brother. An article by Charles Stanley, “The Blessings of Brokenness,” was found in Irving’s study. These passages were highlighted, as if by the sun:
“God will break and keep on breaking us until all resentment, hostility, anger and self importance have been broken out of our lives….Often as people struggle with terminal disease, the outer body literally seems to waste away, yet if they are willing to turn to God and to submit completely to Him and trust Him with their lives, the inner beauty and spiritual strength begins to develop that far out shadows and far outweighs anything happening in the physical realm.”
And the plates of the earth shifted inside me. Rage became gratitude. Doubt became belief. And God, who had always seemed as far away as eternity, became as close as a prayer.