So I’ve been thinking.
Every day that passes I am grateful for my family. There was a time, many years ago, when I wasn’t; but haven’t we all been through that stage of development? And yes, a lot, if not all, of that is for purely selfish reasons. What they can and have done for me, what I do for them that brings me emotional fulfillment. I’m honest with myself, because I’ll find out one day, if I’m not. I get irritated and angry with them frequently, sure, but that’s different, it’s transient emotion. Underneath it all I love them, and I am grateful for them. There are some of you out there who may never feel that way about your family, but then, you may not have gone through some of the things that I’ve been through with my family. And let me tell you, every day that passes, I am grateful that I have my family with me. I can never repeat that too many times.
When I was twelve, my younger brother (he was ten) was hit by a van when he was riding his bike. He died. I won’t go into the details. I never really felt a great deal of anger about it. Just a deep, deep sadness and a shock that never really faded. Every now and then I think I’ll tell him about some really cool thing, and then it’s that touch of loss all over again. Because of my sleep disorder (chronic insomnia, lifelong thing, not caused by this) I sometimes have vivid dreams that seem real, or it takes several moments to distinguish reality from dream when I wake. And when I dream about my brother not being dead, then wake up and realise he is, well. I can’t explain that to you. You’ll either understand or you won’t. If you’ve never experienced it, you don’t understand. You can’t possibly understand.
I’m going to warn you now that here’s where I may sound somewhat petty. I don’t care. Like I said, I’m pretty honest to myself. I’m a fairly self aware person. I said that I don’t feel a lot of anger. It doesn’t mean there isn’t any. It means that it doesn’t rule my life.
I’ve thought long and hard about the man who hit him. Me and my family have to live with his death. So does that man. And you know what? Good. I’m glad he does. Was it completely his fault? No, I doubt that. No one was ever really sure that anyone was to blame for it. Did my brother actually look before he went across the road? I don’t know. Only he knew, and he’s dead. As an atheist, I believe that that is the end. It’s not like anyone can ask him. I know that the man was going fast enough to kill him pretty much instantly. The damage done to his brain was irreparable. A helmet wouldn’t have done him any good, according to the doctors. That street was constantly lined on both sides with cars and there had been several accidents there before, of a similar, if less serious, nature. The man should have been more aware of his surroundings because of that. Maybe my brother should have been, as well.
I’ve been told to forgive him. Not now, but as a child. Religious authorities (we were church people once up on a time, though nowadays only my father is) told me that God preached forgiveness. I told them that God also preached vengence so maybe I should go kill the man who did this to my brother. Hello there, counsellors. I don’t believe in forgiveness anymore. I think it’s a pointless exercise. I chose to move on in my life. He’s dead. I can’t change that. I can only affect my own life. I’ll never get over it. I’ll never forget it. And forgiveness? What is forgiveness anyway? Giving absolution to the man who killed my brother? As if. Only he can forgive himself. Because it may not have been wholly his fault, but he still killed him. He is the one who took my brother from me. And you know what else? Irrational as it may seem, considering he is dead and it doesn’t affect him at all, I partially blame my brother as well. Because part of it was probably his fault too, and I can’t forgive him for being careless. Even though he was ten and that’s pretty much the nature of a ten year old child. I don’t care what anyone says, I will never be able to “get over” that. It took me long enough to come to terms with my last conversation with him being an horrendous argument. That’s what I have to live my life with. So I hope that man that hit him hears the sound of it every day. I hope he never gets over it. But I do hope that he managed to move on in his life. Because life is hard and full of shit, and all you can do is keep going.
I’m not done. Stick with me a little while longer. I know I’m a bit rambly. But that’s the way I am. This post is more for me anyway.
When my younger sister (the order is my older brother, me, dead brother, younger sister, youngest sister) was 19, she was hit by a jeep grand cherokee. Crossing the road, with the lights, as she should have been. To this day, the EMTs, doctors, surgeons… None of them know how she lived. She shouldn’t have lived. She is mobile, she can walk, her brain is all there, she lives by herself (a few doors down from me); but she’s disabled because of her many and extensive injuries. No really, she should not have lived. Shattered bones, countless surgeries, six months in hospital (four before she could get up to pee), a year in a wheelchair. What she can even walk down to the shop is remarkable.
I remember taking the call from my mum when I found out. I was at work. I had both my kids by then, and they were in daycare (I’ll have to write a post about them, because they are amazing children). I… Again, I can’t explain this feeling. I had lost one sibling in almost the exact same manner. To be told that now, now I had almost lost another? There is no way to describe it. Luckily I worked at the university down the street from where she was taken. Someone from the family was at her side every moment she was in hospital and the care home and the rehab home. She was too doped up to care, or she may have wanted privacy; I actually don’t think she would have though, because I know how much almost dying like our brother had died was even scarier than the almost dying part. We couldn’t be reassured enough that she was alive, and going to remain so. To this day I will sometimes go over to her house in the middle of the night just to make sure she’s alive. Or call or text her. Just because I have to know. I do this with all my family. Maybe it gets annoying sometimes. But again, you either know the feeling or you don’t. There are times when you just have to know they’re alive.
The person who hit my sister didn’t take the blame, and the court case against her was lost because the passenger committed perjury. He went to prison. I hope he had fun there. I hope his life is ruined because he lied and that caused the court case against his girlfriend, the driver, to be lost because there were no other witnesses. A lot of the doctors testimonies couldn’t be used because my sister could not ever have survived the injuries she sustained. The driver didn’t suffer any penalties. But I know she told my mum that she woke up every night hearing the sound of her suv hitting my sister. I hope she hears it every night for the rest of her life. I really do.
I’m not going to talk much about the suicide attempts of my older brother because it would triple this post, which is already long, and I don’t… I just don’t. Maybe I’m not there yet. It’s been less time since I was walking out of my front door with him asleep on the couch, expecting that he would be watching the kids when they woke him up later. Only I didn’t walk out, I stopped and went to get a drink of water first, and found all his meds gone, and a note. He’s alive too, and he’s doing wonderfully, and maybe he will be coming to live in England with us in the autumn. That’s the tentative plan.
There’s no big wrap up. I lost one sibling, and I almost lost two others. I cannot let petty things like their personality quirks get in the way of how grateful I am that they are still here. And I guess, if there is a point beyond that, it’s that you need to call someone in your family that you just argued with and say that despite it all, you know what? You’re glad that they’re around. They may not care. or understand.
But maybe they will. And maybe they were looking for a way to say the same thing.
