A Good Deed For Al: Love, Loss, and the Power of Kind Acts
Dave was in the airspace somewhere between DC and San Francisco when I got the call.
It was a rainy, miserable day in the district, and I braved the elements to stop at the ATM on the corner of our block. My phone rang as I was trying to balance my umbrella and navigate the touchscreen. It was my mom. I’d call her back once I was indoors where it was dry and I had a free hand. And besides, if it were something important, she’d call more than once.
My heart sank when she immediately called a second time. …and then maybe a third before I could set down the umbrella and answer it.
As she told me the news, my body went numb, overwhelmed with that tingling feeling that typically comes just before the room goes black. I sat on a wet concrete bench and struggled to catch my breath, nearly impossible to breathe with the huge lump lodged in my throat.
You can imagine worst case scenarios a million times over, and yet you’re never prepared — and there are just some things in life for which one will never be prepared.
Losing my only brother to a heroin overdose is just something I never believed could ever happen. Al was invincible.
In a trance, I made my way back upstairs to the apartment, collapsing on the floor in sobs. It was the worst moment of my life and I was alone.
My immediate thought was to call my father. We had been estranged for years but I thought that tragedy transcended feud.
Through sobs, my first words were “I’m so sorry, Dad.” I guess part of me hoped for some word of comfort as I wept alone in an empty apartment, 850 miles away from home. Instead, his reply was “Well, we all saw this coming.”
A snowstorm was approaching DC and I panicked, not knowing if I’d get out in time.
I didn’t know what to do. I called a friend who came to me immediately. She insisted on helping me pack and she and her husband drove me to the airport, even offering to sit with me there to make sure I was getting on the flight that night.
Neither my mother nor father called me again that day as I sat alone at the gate.
I haunted the airport like a ghoul, already feeling the deep, inescapable divide between the living world and myself. I went so far as to try to make eye contact with a priest, hoping that some sort of magical sixth sense might clue him in to the crushing loss of a non-practicing Jew. (It didn’t.)
But there were mountains of calls, emails, and texts from friends from every stage of my life. And in that most horrible, crushing, lonely moment, they circled the wagons and they protected me, comforted me, and tried their best to lift me up.
A friend was on standby, promising to come pick me up from the airport and stay with me if I couldn’t make it home that night due to the storm. Several other friends from childhood were already making their arrangements to fly into St. Louis. Dave deboarded his six hour flight only to reboard a second flight back east.
I couldn’t handle the thought of food and so I sat at the bar and had a chardonnay or two for dinner.
After 16 years of shouldering my brother’s addiction and having spent my whole life in a severely dysfunctional family punctuated with narcissism, alcoholism, and drug addiction, I became somewhat of an expert at hiding my emotions, swallowing my pain, and pretending everything was ok. A skill that really didn’t serve me well when I was desperate for some show of kindness, some expression of sympathy or humanity.
The bartender was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals hat or shirt or something. I asked them about their team loyalty and, for some reason, took it as a sign that Al was with me in that moment.
In the days that followed, I remember a lot of sleepless nights, sitting awake in the dark living room, a pile of tissues next to me, and trying to avoid the sight of the flickering yahrzeit candle, as though if I didn’t look at it, Al was still here.
Hundreds of people showed up at the funeral and the shiva that extended through the week. I still have these flashbacks that come to me in the night when insomnia wins. An amalgam of faces and snippets of conversations, but I always come back to that moment when it was my turn to pick up the shovel. I don’t know how I even walked to it. I don’t know how long I stood paralyzed in front of the mound of dirt, I just remember at some point, Dave getting up to stand next to me, to physically prop me up so that I could do the unthinkable.
After the service, my parents circulated and talked to others. I couldn’t stand leaving Al before they covered him entirely. A friend held me as I stood next to the grave and watched as his pine box was blanketed with earth.
When trying to express how much I miss my brother, I always think of that Simpsons episode where Bart sells his soul. There’s this scene where each kid has a “soul,” a playground playmate that looks like their twin. And each one of them is holding hands with their soul, playing on a see saw together, playing games and Bart’s out there alone. Just crushing, palpable loneliness.
And the emptiness lingers eight years on, not just because I lost my brother, but because of who he was. His sense of humor and adventure, his outrageous wit, his kindness and generosity. The way he hugged me and would call me “Little Rebecca,” as his 6 foot+ tall frame towered over me. His loyalty.
In the years since their divorce and their various mental health and addiction issues of their own, my parents seem to only see the worst qualities of each other in me. Al stood up for me, he always saw the good in me, he saw my intentions clearly, even when my actions didn’t measure up.
I don’t think I knew it then but I know it now — we’re both poisoned fruit from the poisoned tree and it wasn’t Al’s addiction standing in the way of a happy family. I wish I could tell him that I know that none of this was his fault. I wish I could tell him how much I love him just one more time.
I tried my best to navigate the sixteen years of chaos as best I could. I tried to support my family as best I could and to finish college and graduate school and to become a capable, responsible adult somehow in the midst of the constant emotional churn. I tried to overachieve my way out of dysfunction.
It’s truly impossible to explain it to those who haven’t lived it. Attempting to live a normal life when you’ve got a loved one struggling with addiction is like trying to go to work and maintain relationships after having stayed awake for a week straight, trying to breathe while 30 feet underwater, trying to tread water in the ocean with 100-pound weights attached to each leg.
It’s damn near impossible to stop the room from spinning and judgment comes so easily to those who haven’t lived it.
It’s been eight years since I said goodbye to Al. I remember being told that the funeral wasn’t the hard part, it was when all the people left and went back to their lives and you had to be there alone. And it’s absolutely true. Life goes on for everyone else but you.
But when those pangs hit, I remember coming back to DC after the funeral and finding a Trader Joe’s bag full of ingredients to make my Thai peanut noodles that I had cooked for a friend and other groceries she left for us so that we didn’t have to go to the store that night.
I remember how my friends filled the patio at my favorite Greek restaurant with me a few weeks later. I wasn’t eating or sleeping and smiling still felt foreign, but they all just wanted to be with me, to let me know that I wasn’t alone.
I think about a friend who plotted with Dave to surprise me with a beautiful photo book she made for me filled with childhood photos of me and Al.
I remember how so many of my dear friends gathered with me in St. Louis for my birthday that year, so that it wasn’t all just sadness and loss. They made me feel like it was okay to smile.
I think about the messages I get from friends all over the world every March 2 to let me know they did their good deed for Al.
…and in their acts of kindness and in the countless kindnesses they’ve shown me since, I feel Al’s presence and remember that I’m not alone.
Please help me pay these kindnesses forward. Please do a good deed today to honor my brother’s life. Put some good out into the world.
