Farther Along

A few minutes ago I learned that my brother had a heart attack early this morning.  He was ambulanced to hospital and stabilized. They found a blockage.  He was transferred to a better hospital with more facilities late this afternoon and is now under the capable care of cardiologists there, who may put in a stent. 

It's strange how calm I am knowing that he may die.  If this had happened three years ago I would have been a basket case - with so much left unsaid, so much anger and so much unresolved bitterness. 

Just a few weeks ago, he and I had a real heart-to-heart (no pun intended) and he shared with me how he feels about his life, his fears about his health, and his frustrations in dealing with our common history.  We got a chance to put to rest many things in that short talk.  We didn't need to belabour any points because we both come from the same place and when one of us said said, "Well, you know how ____ is..." the other knew exactly what he or she meant.

I really don't know what comes next.  All I know is that for the  moment, he is right where he needs to be and ... if God does decide that it is his time, he is in for one whallop-a-looza of a surprise because he thinks he is so very unworthy.  

I know differently, because I know his heart - he's made a lot of mistakes in his life (I know; I was there) and he has a lot of things that he holds onto which have put him in that hospital bed.  But where the cleats bite into the dirt, he's such a precious gift to all who take the time to look past the "angry man" exterior and see the passionate person he really is.  There was a time when I could not really say that at all - but God has worked a bona fide miracle in me and I am able to love and have compassion for this man today.  

He taught me to look past the exterior of a person and see the beauty inside.  

I can still see him, his eyes brimming with the the sting of the rejection of yet another preppie young girl in high school, pleading through his tears, "Sis ... promise me - whatever you do - don't turn a man down just because he's ugly."  I never forgot it. 

He taught me to play the guitar.  When at the age of 16 I broke his favorite guitar, I expected him to hit the roof.  He was upset of course, but he just went and spent his savings on another guitar for himself and gave me his broken one. "If Dad can fix it, it's yours."  

Dad did.  I still have it.  

He stuck up for me when I was hurt - even if it meant he would be hurt in the process.  And to this day, I know he treasures every moment we spent together singing, making harmony together.  Laughing like fools at some silly thing that struck us both funny.  We could make each other angrier than anyone else could.  And yet when the chips were down, we were there for each other.

Artistic, musical, temperamental, and nerdy - in a Jimmie Walker "Dy-no-mite!" kind of way.

He'd write a song and I'd be the first one he would play it for.  Then he'd teach it to me so that I could sing and play along - or be able to play it for our other brother (who passed away last June).  We'd learn all the words and riffs to the latest James Taylor or John Denver song (wow that dates us...) or he'd break into a Gordie Lightfoot tune... or, because he could see the absurdity of the simply ridiculous - just ride a comic wave and have me, and the whole family, in stitches, gasping for breath.  

He has the soul of a poet.  I used to watch him draw - rocks and their shadows still  fascinate him. Cobblestones, a bridge across a brook.  A rock face on a mountain.  His sketch book is remarkable.  My favorite of his are the scrolls - he could draw a scroll and make it look like it was a thousand years old, with faded Gothic writing on it. 

No, I don't know what will happen to him in the next few days.  I don't even know if he'll make it. But I will pray that he knows peace - and finds total acceptance and unconditional love - because that is all he ever wanted.