Memories of my Brother
Sugar or salt in your tea?
08 July 2011
Sometime very early in the morning, it’s still dark outside, when the phone rang. Before I fully woke up, it had stopped. As I drifted back to sleep, I somehow knew that the day would bring bad news.
At 5:30 am the doorbell rang. I did not want to open it. I did not want to know what was happening outside the safety of my warm bed. I did not want to re-enter the real world. The phone rang again. This time I was awake enough and answered it. It was my sister asking to be let in. She and my niece were outside my door.
I hurriedly put some clothes on and went to open the door with the prayer “please god not my mum” on my lips. It wasn’t my mum. It was the other possibility, my brother, Marek.
Marek had died during the night, from Pneumonia and other complications.
The rain was lashing down, the wind was howling; the weather crying for this untimely, unnecessary death.
Twelve years later I still can’t quite take it in. I cannot believe I will never see my beloved brother. My older brother who was supposed to be here for me — forever!
I am sad I am angry, but I can’t cry. Why oh why can’t I cry?
I have lost my brother.
And he was the best there is.
We had so much fun together.
He was MY big brother.
I remember when still in Czechoslovakia, as a five-year-old child playing outside with my friends, there was a group of us, and we were talking about our brothers. Each one of us shouted that theirs was the largest, strongest, biggest and best.
Mine was!
Marek was eight years older. But at the same time as being my “big” brother, he loved to play, and boy, did we play. We used to play with my collection of Matchbox cars, making a road all the way from the second floor of our house in Holland to the ground floor. Down the steep stairs the makeshift road went. The cars half slid half crashed down. No wonder the cars are all chipped!
We used to play practical jokes on each other; it just wasn’t safe to put a spoon full of sugar into your tea, without tasting it first. Use a soap that - may make you dirty instead of clean. We would hide things or tell totally unbelievable stories to our parents about each other.
He was also my teacher. Even at a very early age, when we were forced to leave our homeland, my parents asked him to teach me Czech grammar. I wasn’t too keen, and it didn’t last long. But well into my adulthood, when I sent him a letter or a postcard, it would come back with corrections in red pen! But I never did mind, as the comments with the corrections would have me in fits of laughter.
He also taught me about cooking, how to make various drinks, English bears, punting, photography, and a load of other things.
He was also my big brother, with all that entails. There for me when things went wrong. He plucked me out of the sea when a large wave threatened to throw me onto some rocks. He was there to pick me up when I fell of my table and cracked my chin open. He was there when I broke my leg skiing, making me laugh all the way to the hospital.
He was also my intellectual stimulation. We never fought, but we did have heated discussions about all kinds of things, such as religion, politics, archaeology, and science. The fists would bang the table because we wanted to put our point across. Passionate for what we both stood for or believed, each not wanting to give an inch. But it was all fun. And FUN was what he understood so well.
And even though we did not see eye to eye on many worldly things, we also loved many of the same things. Apart from good food and wine, we loved nature and history, and he would take me on interesting walks. I loved archaeology and could indulge through him in this interest. He loved science, and through me, we would explore many possibilities.
He was MY big brother, and a piece of me is gone with him. I am incomplete. We were three, my brother, my sister and I. That trinity is no more. The Ying and Yang of that relationship is broken. There is nothing that can replace that very empty space that his passing leaves within me.
He lived life to the fullest; some have written to me that he lived more than any mere mortal could. He burned brightly, too brightly and burned out his life far too soon. The bright candle that was my brother has been extinguished, but he will live on in all of us.
