Psycho homework

.. from Dr. Shrinkwrap.

Hm. We talked last week about the difficulty I'm still having in letting go of my brother, even two years after his death. We talked about why this is so much harder for me than my Dad's death was. One of the reasons, I think, is that in the last years of Dad's life, I worked hard at keeping short accounts with him, and always had the feeling that we were "square", that neither of us owed the other anything. I was okay with him - never felt like there were things left unsaid.

With my brother, though.. there was so much unfinished business.. so much still unresolved.. :(

And like no one else, serious conversation with someone about him brings me to such a combination of anger, tears, pride, love and disappointment, that I just can't contain it. It's still fresh, it still hurts. And .. things from 20, 30, 40 years ago are like they just happened last week. Why?

I guess I knew where I stood with Dad. I knew what his love and affirmation was based on (such as it was) - it was performance-based, either in academics or career. I wanted more than that, of course. Touch, for one thing. An interest in answering my faith questions for another. A shared love for music & arts for another. But at least his affirmation was well-defined and predictable. I knew what I had to do, and who I had to be, to earn it. With him, I learned how to play a part to get affirmation.

With my brother, I was never sure where I stood. Never sure how he felt. Fourteen years older than me, he was almost a second dad. He exuded such ambivalence toward me (or at least that's how it seemed..); he ranged from lavish generosity to harsh disregard, from warm attentiveness to cold aloofness. Which side I would see from month to month, year to year, (or if I'd even see him at all - he'd disappear for years at a time), I could never depend on knowing.

So, Dr. S-W suggested that it was this "unfinished business" with him that makes his death still seem so fresh. He suggested that I think about having him across a table from me, and (presuming it felt safe to do so - which is a big presumption) think about what I would want to ask him and tell him, if he were still here and willing to talk. Picture it, think through it, write it out, he said.

And that's what this is. I've been putting it off since last week when the therapist assigned it. I really don't want to have this discussion. But I have another appointment today, and need to get this done.

So you can stop reading now (unless you have an urge to eavesdrop a little bit on this one-sided conversation I'll be having.)

The rest of this is between me.. and the brother I'll never get back.





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What happened to you?

What went wrong? What broke you so badly that you couldn't be fixed? What died inside?

What made you such a wastrel in life, and such a disappointment to those who loved you, respected you, had such hopes for you?

Why did we all have to see you settle, time and again, for things that were beneath you?

Why did you run from success, as if you were punishing yourself for something, believing that you didn't deserve anything that was good in life? So that when you got your hands on something good, and were making something of it, you destroyed it, and had to run away?

Was it the knowledge that Mom and Dad "had to get married" because of you? Did you feel you were the little unborn reason that made them abandon their dreams and live in a marriage where the normal state of affairs was constant yelling and accusations, fighting all the time?

Was it something about that mysterious "car accident" when you were in high school, that no one would ever tell little brother about? Did something awful happen? Were you the cause?

You would promise things and not deliver on them. You would say you'd be there and not show up. You would forget special days, occasions, things that meant something to those who loved you.

And then, after sometimes years of silence, you would do something so extraordinarily generous that it was stunning, and made me want to believe in you again.

What happened to you?

You exuded this cavalier, devil-may-care, there-is-only-now approach to things that belied your prediliction for self-destruction, and the destruction of the relationships around you.

You tossed off serious topics far too lightly, making a joke of anything that might be significant. So much fun, but soooo surface-level. It was as if you were afraid to have a serious conversation with anyone, because it might reveal something about who you really were inside, or who you *could* be if you ever stopped clowning.

The only serious conversation you and I ever had was on the telephone when you were roaring drunk, and called me out for not acting like a man and pulling my weight with Dad's needs, when I was only barely out of boyhood. When I tried to engage you as an adult about something meaningful.. you blew me off.

You were always good for a laugh and a good time. From after high school onward, when you first drank yourself right out of college and into the military, the laughs were all you seemed to care about. And you always headed downward, but seemed happy about it, almost proud of your downward spiral.

You lied about who you were. You lied to everyone around you, and you lied to yourself. You settled for a hand-to-mouth existence when you didn't have to. You turned the circumstances of your life into a shambles, always choosing a path down.

You let yourself go physically. You poisoned your brilliant mind with alcohol, you abandoned your wife and children, you ran from your family and friends, you surrounded yourself with losers and misfits and good-time party people who didn't give a damn about life any more than you did.

And in the end you died from self-abuse and self-neglect, sick, drunk and alone in the night in the darkness of your trailer, your woman asleep in the other room.

What happened to you?

And really.. why the hell should I care?



Except I do. I still do.

You bastard. Why can't I let you go?

I can't help but still love you.. and wish to God you were still here.



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