A Story About My Brother
It seemed so inconsequential. At least, in my naivety, it seemed inconsequential to me. One large lump, above his left knee. No other lumps anywhere else.
It had seemed so inconsequential to me. But it wasn’t happening to me.
When my big brother first told me that the golf-ball-sized lump above his left knee was malignant, I tried not to worry. After all, for many many years, my brother was perfectly healthy and strong. He was a cyclist who competed in intense races — and was known throughout his cycling circles as a “hecka fast dude”. He always ate healthy, save for the occasional “cheat meal” of fried chicken or chicharron (fried pork skin) — and he was dedicated to staying active and fit. If anyone was going to beat cancer, it would be my big brother.
Growing up, my brother was a typical older brother —a bossy, extremely over-protective, boy who teased me mercilessly. I would often tell my friends that it was as if I had a third parent. I wasn’t complaining, though. It was more like it was just the way it was, and I had learned to deal with it. There was nothing my brother did that made me feel as if he didn’t care about me, and I knew he was just trying to help me or protect me. Even if I didn’t like what he was saying, I didn’t talk back or argue with him.
When I was in my junior year in high school, I was hospitalized for two weeks with kidney failure. I ended up being diagnosed with Lupus, a chronic illness. I didn’t realize how much this had affected my brother, until he gave me a birthday card nearly a decade later. In it, he wrote that my birthdays were very special to him and that he prayed for my continued good health. I wish I had kept more of the numerous birthday and Christmas cards that he had sent me over the years. (He had such neat penmanship, so much nicer than mine.) He called me LilSis, and I called him BigBro. I never would have thought that I would outlive my healthy, highly-active, and adventurous BigBro. I always thought that, one day, decades from now, we would continue joking and comparing stories about our grandchildren, and elderly parents.
My brother was there for me throughout my college years. When I got into U.C. Berkeley, he was proud of me. The university was relatively close by, so my parents expected that I would come home most weekends. My brother promised them that it wouldn’t be a problem for him to bring me back each Sunday — and it wasn’t a problem, until basketball season came around. A huge basketball fan, he hated missing any part of a game. But he still drove me to school every weekend, like a good son and older brother. Now, decades later — as I chauffeur my pre-teen to her various sports and activities — I realize what a sacrifice of time and energy it was for him to do that for four years. I don’t know if I ever properly thanked him.
It has been one year since my brother left us. I cannot help but feel pain whenever I think of his life cut short, or how much he suffered during the last year and a half of his life. And that is not how I want to remember my kind, generous, strong, and brave BigBro. But the reality is that, on most days, I am still consumed by heartache and guilt. And anger. There is still so much anger.
My anger takes many forms. When my brother was ill, and resisting my attempts to find him another doctor or a new course of treatment, I was angry at him. He always seemed so concerned about the costs of any experimental treatment, or how much money and burden it would be for the family if he were to relocate (temporarily) to another location where different treatments would be available. I would tell him that the money wasn’t important. Once, he yelled at me that he didn’t expect anyone to spend their life’s savings on him, that he “wasn’t worth it”.
We would argue about this every so often. I never wanted to upset him…I just wanted him to live. And every time he said “No”, I felt like he had given up. I was mad, despite how selfish and ridiculous it was to be mad at someone who was dying. When my 10-year-old daughter, who is sometimes wise beyond her years, overheard me complaining about my brother’s stubbornness, she simply told me, “But, it’s his decision.”
I was also mad at God. To be honest, I still am. Going to church services since my brother passed away has been a challenge. Praying…well, I don’t really pray anymore, at least not like I did all those nights, begging for a miracle cure for my BigBro. If anyone deserved a miracle, it was him. He wasn’t done.
My brother loved his life, and he loved living. He was happy. He made us happy. And we still needed him. We needed him for advice and mentorship, for laughter and love.
None of this mattered, apparently, when it came to saving his life. So, yeah, if I think about it long enough, I still get pretty pissed off at God. Sometimes, I look up to the sky and scream, “WHY?” Sometimes, I rage and I cry…and when I cry, I kick and punch in the air — like a toddler would do if you took away her favorite toy. It’s all very immature and excessive, but I don’t care.
My mother asks me how I can blame God. She says I should have faith in His plan. It is exactly because of my faith in Him that I feel such anger. How could this all-powerful being allow my brother to suffer like that — to endure pain that stripped him of his senses, stripped him of his strength and athleticism, and broke him down?
And then there is the guilt. Like the anger, the guilt takes many forms. I feel guilty for not spending more time with him. Sometimes, I didn’t visit because it was just so hard for me to see him in so much pain. It was mean and selfish, and I owed my BigBro better. I feel guilty for not being able to help, for not being smart enough. Why hadn’t I gone to med school, become an oncologist or researcher? Why wasn’t I more successful, richer, so that no one — especially my brother — had to worry about someone using up their life’s savings to help him.
And then there is the guilt that it wasn’t me.
I was the one who already had a chronic illness. I was the one who was used to being sick. My parents and my family had already come to grips with my illness. My brother was the strong and healthy one.
But also, my brother was simply a better person than I. He was generous to all, and someone who would often go out of his way to help (and wouldn’t even bat an eye about doing so). He was a mentor and father-figure to several young men in our family — children whose own fathers were either neglectful or absent. My brother spoiled them, he spoiled our parents, and he spoiled me. I regret that I waited so long to spoil him back. When it became clear that his cancer was terminal, I set out to buy him everything he wanted. I told him I would take time off of work, and we could go wherever he wanted. But he wasn’t feeling well enough to leave his bed most days. He didn’t want to leave it. He called it his “sanctuary”.
I felt guilty that there was nothing I could do to take away his pain. On many days, I would sit by his bedside, helpless and scared for my BigBro, and just listen to him cry in pain. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it. He would call me and tell me how depressed and scared he was. There was nothing I could say. Was I supposed to tell him “it will be okay”, when I knew that it wasn’t going to be? I prayed to God to let me share the burden of the pain, take some away from him and give it to me. But I didn’t know what I was asking for. (My brother had once told me that he wouldn’t wish this kind of pain on anyone.) I begged my brother to take his opiates so that he wouldn’t suffer. He limited himself. He didn’t want to get addicted, he said. He didn’t want to deal with withdrawal symptoms, and he didn’t want to live whatever time he had left in a daze, asleep, and missing time with his loved ones.
It is because of the utmost respect that I have for my brother’s strength and bravery during his last few months that I feel this weight of grief all over. I grieve that he suffered, and that he chose to suffer in that way specifically so that he could be conscious and aware and mentally “sharp” for his family. Everything he did, the choices he made for his treatment, were to extend his life (while causing him even more pain in the process) — and that was never for himself. I realize now that he was putting himself through all of this, so that he could be there for us. So that we wouldn’t break. So that my parents still had their son, and his wife and daughter still had their husband and father. So that I still had my brother. He knew that we still needed him.
The thought of my brother willingly putting himself through torturous treatment, nauseating chemo, and debilitating pain — for us — is sometimes more heartache than I can bear. Even in his last few moments, my brother was still concerned about us. One time, at the hospital, he awoke from a nap and saw me by his side. He grabbed my arm and looked at me with such an urgency, and asked if “Ma and Dad were okay.” I said I would take care of them. He asked if I was okay. I lied and said that I would be. I told him not to worry about us.
Once, when we were all alone, I whispered in his ear. I asked him if he remembered the last fight we had, when he told me that he “wasn’t worth it”.
I told him that he was wrong. I told him that he was worth everything.
I told him he was the best big brother, and that I hope I was a good little sister.
When he could no longer speak, he would write, and make gestures with his hands. (It’s amazing how well he could communicate simply by they way he looked at us.) Those last few nights at the hospital, we would all spend the night in his room. I’m not sure how we did it, but there were six of us curled up on chairs and recliners in his little hospital room. Once, I opened my eyes in the middle of the night and saw him sitting up in his bed, wide awake, staring at us. I asked him why he wasn’t sleeping and resting. He smiled and pointed at all of us. He made some gestures. He was telling me that he liked watching us sleep.
I grieve when I think of how scared he must have been those last few minutes of his life. We were all at his bedside, holding his hand, touching him. We talked to him, hoped he could hear us, even if he couldn’t see us. Could he feel us there?
I hope to God that he knew that he wasn’t alone.
Every so often, I dream of my brother. We are hanging out in our parents’ living room — teasing each other, laughing, discussing what trouble my daughter has been getting into, and overall, I’m just enjoying his company. But then I wake up, and reality strikes. My heart aches, literally. I feel a sharp pain where my heart is, and a second later, it’s gone. But the heartache and sadness — and still, the shock — always remain.
I could never have imagined living in a world without my BigBro. I am scared that I will never be truly happy again. I am scared that I will always feel lonely.
I still remember, with painful clarity, the days, hours, and seconds leading up to the moment when my brother took his last breath. I still remember how it sounded, and how I just knew that it was his last. I remember feeling numb. I remember hearing my sister-in-law scream that she lied, that she wasn’t ready yet, begging him to give her one more “warm breath”. I remember running into another room, and two of my brother’s good friends grabbed me to hug me and console me — when, in all honesty, that was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to be alone, to cry, and kick and scream, and rage against the unfairness of all of this.
My logical brain tries to tell the rest of me that my brother would not want us to continue suffering. He would want us to remember the happy moments, and to live the lives we were meant to live. My logical brain tells me that I should rejoice that my brother’s pain ended a year ago. And I do, but the price was losing my brother.
Looking at happy pictures helps. They remind me that for the vast majority of his remarkable life, my brother was strong, healthy, and happy. I just wish I had more pictures. And I wish I had more videos, so that I could hear his sweet voice.
I miss you, BigBro.
