His Brother's Keeper

A work friend lost his brother today to a heart attack.  

I’ve never met him, but we were just talking about his brother last week.  Moments after he heard the news, the military officer in him kicked in.  He sent an email asking if I could cover a call for him.  Efficient and collected in a crisis.  Our country has trained him to be that way.  

I however, am still in shock and processing what this means for his family.  My heart aches and I can’t move my eyes from the email – family crisis.

I lost my brother suddenly too, some years ago.  The memories wash over me; being the person to keep things going.  I lack his training, his composure.  I run up to his office, but he is gone. I don’t know what I was expecting to do had he been there.  I wipe the tears from my eyes and head back to my desk.

That night, my mother and sister's hearts were broken into tiny grieving pieces that seemed to magnify the pain.  I have never been more afraid than I was looking at my mother in those moments.  I just knew the grief would press on her heart with such force that it would collapse under the weight and stop beating.  I kept checking constantly to make sure she was still breathing.

I took, in cash, all of the money we had between us and stuffed it into my back pocket.  $1800 from a 401K she had closed a few months before and the $750 I had set for the rent. I went to a funeral home on Broadway – I passed it a few times before. I had no idea  - were they good or bad? But a place with a sign seemed just as reasonable in that moment as looking up a name in the phone book - option B.

The owner was a gentle man with salt and pepper hair and pale skin. Empathetic without an agenda.

"I have to bury my brother.  My mother can't be here, she can't actually talk at all.  We don't have enough money to cover it; this is all we have."

I pulled the wad of bills out of my back pocket and dropped them on the table. They had become crumpled and damp and landed in a mess on some papers.  It occurred to me in that moment when I noticed the papers that you may be expected to call beforehand.  That showing up randomly at funeral home might not be the way one goes about such things.  It didn’t matter really, I had no capacity to pretend I knew any better or would have had the strength to do anything differently if I did.  Nor did I have it in me to negotiate with him or pretend we had means beyond the truth.

He asked me to have a seat at the small desk, slid the pile dollars covered papers to the side, and waited until I looked him in the eye.

"Are you ok?"

The tears poured down my face.  It was the first time I had cried since it happened.  I couldn't cry at home.  Someone had to keep our family together.  Someone had to make sure my brother had a dignified service and that my mother kept breathing.

But with this man, in the random funeral home - the smell of death and attempts of preservation hanging in the air - I wept for more than an hour. I didn’t say a word and neither did he.

I thought of this moment in my life today as I cried for my friend. The Air Force Officer whose training I’m sure will help him stay strong with a broken heart.  

But no training in this world prepares you for the moment you realize that life is fragile.  We squander so much time with the hope for a tomorrow to get it right.  All the while with an ignorant disregard for the fact that tomorrow has never been promised and is not guaranteed.

Today has to be when you do what matters.

With her heart overwhelmed – your BCG.