02/15/2010 3:00 am
Life
Saying Good Night to My Brother, by Myrna Blyth
When my brother passed away, I lost my best friend …
Editor’s Note: Myrna Blyth is the founding editor of More magazine, was the longtime editor-in-chief of Ladies’ Home Journal and was senior editor for Family Circle magazine. She was also the chairman of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Currently she writes for The National Review Online and is the editor-in-chief of Betty Confidential.
"You’re my best friend," I told my brother. He was trying to breathe, lying in a hospice bed in Boca Raton. My sons were also leaning over him, "Breathe." "Uncle, Breathe.""Tell your mother she better get some new friends," he croaked back. His throat was sore and raspy from nearly a week on a respirator. But that was my brother Herb: witty, sardonic and utterly realistic.
For him it had been more than three weeks in and out of hospitals and rehab facilities. He had fallen on Christmas night and couldn’t get up. He usually had an aide with him but it was Christmas and he was alone. He had wheeled himself into the kitchen to make a holiday turkey and fell getting out of the wheelchair to go to the bathroom. "My leg just gave way under me," he told me over the phone when I tracked him down the next day at the hospital He sounded annoyed.
| He whispered he wanted to go to sleep ... "Enough, Myrna, enough." That's when Graham suggested we stop urging him to breathe. |
After a couple of days in the hospital he was transferred to a rehab facility. But he complained about the pain in his leg, threw trays at the attendants and shouted at me when I called, "I think I’m dying."
He had not been really healthy for years. He was very overweight – what doctors call morbidly obese – and had diabetes. There was a half-dollar-sized wound on the sole of his foot that never healed, and he complained occasionally about having trouble catching his breath But I thought he was just going through another bad patch and would be home in a few days to answer the phone when I or my sons or any of his half-dozen good friends called. He was my only sibling and we were very close. He had never married and was very important to my sons as well. We talked to him almost every day on the phone.
At the rehab center, he was also hallucinating. I thought it was the Percocet they gave him for the pain from the knee on which he had fallen. He told me he saw my dead mother in his room. "What did she say?" I asked. "She said, ‘Boy, have you gotten fat!’" It sounded just like my mother.
He was sent back to the hospital because the rehab center couldn’t handle him. Amy, one of my daughters-in-law, and I went down to Florida to be with him. The doctor who admitted him to the hospital both times complained to us about his lack of care. He had a urinary tract infection and his kidneys were not functioning well. He now also had MRSA, a bacterial infection, usually contracted in a hospital.
I told the doctor that at home he had been receiving constant medical attention. He had a health aide and a nurse who visited him every day to check on his condition Medicare had bought him a new wheelchair and a scooter. He saw an internist and an infectious disease doctor almost weekly. And for that breathing problem, he had been at a sleep apnea clinic a few months earlier and been advised to wear a mask that provided oxygen while sleeping. He didn’t want to do it.
In truth, I knew he spent most of his time with his doctors and nurses talking about them rather than about his health problems. He had told me all about the sex life of one blonde, attractive doctor whom he liked. He admired one nurse who was a very hard worker. He knew about the child she was adopting and the house she was buying. He became their friend rather than their patient. It kept his dignity.
- Email this Post
- login or register to post comments
22 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Myrna, that iwas such a healthfelt sister story. Thank you. I was going back to bed when I saw this story posted, and had to read what you wrote, and the end, the good nights. Mine have been good byes.
I lost my brother at 19 from kidney cancer, and from the moment he was diagnosed (after months of an undiagnosed back ache while on steroids for non-existent ashtma) he went into a rapid, painful decline.
The goodbyes were missed when he was alive. I had to fly across country with a new baby, then another new one at the end and by the time I arrive the last time, I didn’t recognize him - nothing was life of his 6’3" person. Family and friends told me that I kept trying to find him and refused to hear the truth - but the truth was I couldn’t accept anything, or losing him.
To me, he will always be my little brother playing in the flower bed with his red truck, all dressed up for our dad to arrive home from work. Nothing changes that image, as I obediently stayed on the sidewalk, dusting off my patent leathers on the back of my leg, wondering how he could get away with playing in the dirt.
There are times when life is simply not fair - not fair at all.
(18 years later, our little sister died from cancer… at 23)
Your story touched my heart. Your brother was so fortunate he had a sister like you who cared for him. That made his life and death more important than those who are left to die alone, and at the mercies of the health care system.
There are so many feelings left inside of us who remain and the "if onlys" are with us forever. Two weeks before my son was killed I got very angry with him because he came home drunk after being in rehab and sober for some time. I called him a terrible name to which he responded "What mother calls her son that?" I left the house and drove all over the place for several hrs. before I could return home with my sorrow for calling him that. Years later, I still grieve for him and grieve even more that I called him such a terrible name. It will never leave my soul.
Never get terribly angry with those you love for any reason. Time is short and you never know what awaits you tomorrow. Be there for them, and always let them know how important they are. This is not exactly on topic, but Myrna’s sad story made me think once more of my actions. Her brother had a wonderful sister, and CJay is right too - "life is simply not fair - not fair at all."
"Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way is is."
My son was murdered 4 years ago, and left behind a new baby girl. Her mom was murdered 4 monthes ago, and she was left behind with no parents. What is fair about that? But, we as humans keep on keeping on. Why? Who knows, we just do.
You have my condolences. You have your memories. I like to believe your brother is at peace, free of pain and with family and friends who made this journey having a ball. He sounds like a guy who knew how to have a good time.
I have a younger brother whom I love deeply and cannot imagine life without. We grieve and with each passing day we learn to accept their death. Myrna, soon there will be laughter when reminiscing over memories.
Myrna you are in my prayers, know your brother is no longer in pain and I believe in my heart he is sitting down with Jesus and all his friends and family that have gone before him. You will be together again when the time comes.
Two hours before my Dad passed he called me and told me for the first time in my life (I was 34) that he loved me and he was proud of me. The doctor told me he believed as I did that he needed to tell me before he passed to make sure I knew. I knew he did, he just couldn’t say the words. Like your brother my father made the gesture of letting us know that they loved us and they spared us from being their to watch them move on.
He will always be with you in your heart, memories and family photo’s. Remember all the good and everyday think of one thing about him that makes you smile, it will help with the emotional pain you are going through.
God Bless you Myrna, I will keep you and your boys in my prayers.
Dear Myrna:
I am so sorry for your loss. You must have cared deeply for your brother, to write so lovingly about him.
In my life so far, I have spent the last dying days with an uncle, and my father-in-law. At their bedsides, both my uncle and father-in-law saw and talked to family members or friends that had passed before them. One week before my uncle died, we were sitting on his front porch over looking the town he had lived in his whole life. The sun was going down streaking the sky in pink, orange and magenta. It was a truly serene and beautiful setting. My uncle said to me, "This sounds crazy, but my old friend Howard was sitting in my bedroom last night. We talked most of the night about old times up at the cottage, fishing, boating and drinking. It was good. What the heck. I couldn’t sleep anyway, and I enjoyed the company and conversation."
I told my uncle I didn’t think he was crazy. What I didn’t tell him, the week before when I was visiting my father-law-in in the hospital, who had had a debilitating stroke several months before, my father-in-law was also seeing dead people. My husband and I had been visiting him for most of the day, and when it was time for us to go home, my father-lin-law said to us. "Go ahead, go home. Don’t worry about me. I won’t be lonely. Geraldine comes to sit with me. She keeps me company through the night."
I thought Geraldine was a nurse, or a volunteer. So, on my way out of the hospital, I stopped at the nurses station to ask them to pass on our thanks to Geraldine. We wanted to thank her for keeping my father-in-law company. The nurse at the station told me, that name did not sound familiar to her. But, just the same, she looked on the nurses rooster and volunteer rooster for a Geraldine. There was no Geraldine on her lists. We stopped in at my mother-in-law’s house for tea before we returned home to the town we lived in. I asked her if she knew of a Geraldine who might be visiting my father-in-law in the hospital. At first my 86 year old mother-in-law said no. Geraldine did not ring a bell with her. But, then after some thought, she remembered. "Yes, we did know a Geraldine. Geraldine and her husband Frank were our very good friends back in the 50’s. They were our neighbours, when we bought our first house." My mother-in-law went on to tell us. "But, Geraldine has been dead for over 35 years."
I don’t know if my uncle was hallucinating because of the pain killers he was on. Painkillers could have helped him conjour up an image of his old friend Howard. But, I know for certain, at the time my father-in-law was seeing Geraldine, he was not on any drugs.
It’s a nice thought, and gives me comfort and hope that when it is our time to go, we don’t go alone. We are escorted by a loved one.
Dear Myrna:
I am so very sorry for loss. We buried my "little" brother 3 weeks ago. He was 54 years old, and a lifelong alcoholic that finally just gave up on life. He died alone in his house, I was away on vacation, and it was 10 days before I found him. I am only getting through this by continually telling myself that I will not define his life by the manner or reason of his death, but by the manner in which he lived his life. Yes, he drank, but he never set out to deliberately hurt anyone. He was kind and loving when he was sober, he tried to be the best son and brother and uncle that he was able to be, under the circumstances. He was the only person I could talk and joke and cry about our shared childhood with, the only person that shared my memories, and now he is dead. Even though he drank, he was the rock that would hopefully stand next to me once our parents were gone. I wish I had the chance to say goodbye to him properly.
Over two years ago, my brother who worked a graveyard shift came home one morning, ate breakfast then climbed into bed and never woke up again at 56.
Although, in my own family death is sudden as a rule with only a phone call aknowledging leaving this world - I am not sure whether weeks spent saying goodbye would have been any easier. In the final moment, the same reality exist for those left behind.
My brother was my best friend also from as early as I could remember, a picture found afterwards shows him at seven holding me as a baby. Comforting to know even when I was not aware, he was still there for me and I believe he always will be.
I do not believe death exist for those who leave, only for those who remain through separation and grief left to still be experienced. With a bond that was held between becoming an identifier in the depth of the process.
Sounds like your brother’s true resistance was in losing his own sense of strength and choice in how he lived his days. As long as he could thow a tray like a football and hit a target his power was still with him and prodding him on. All markers of a resilent soul who never lost the power to be his own person and do it his way. Strength, energy and his ability to persevere to you on your journey ahead.
Myrna…thought to you and your sons, parents during this time of loss.
My mother grieved herself to death after the sudden loss of her daughter. My older sister died very suddenly at ate 50, they were close and saw each other nearly every day. My mom held out for about 18 months, her heart was broken, until Thanksgiving when she could be surrounded by those she cared about and who cared about her. She passed on in mid-December. I asked my Dad what her final words were. My dad said with a wry smile…she sat up in bed and said loudly, "Call my doctors" and then she passed on. It is true what you said about people not ever really wanting to die in the end…not even the most religious. Thanks for sharing.