I've lived in fear as long as I can remember.....Fear of failure. Fear of love. Fear of sex. Fear of pain. But the biggest fear has always been the fear of death. I was afraid until I sat with my brother, Tim, countless hours, as he lay dying in the hospital of liver cancer. Tim was one of the funniest people I ever met in life....he was loud, tacky and for most of his life, an alcoholic and a drug addict. It was the latter that would ultimately take his life. He had contracted Hep-C during his stint in the Army during the Vietnam War. Soldiers returning from the war were often strung out on drugs and angry about their injuries. Tim was assigned to a medical unit charged with taking care of many of the returning wounded. During the care of one, or some of these soldiers, they flung blood on my brother and infected him with the virus. He carried on his entire adult life after his service, business as usual with a few dips here and there because of the disease.
I won't say it was an idyllic life, (he had four children with three different women), but his children bare little of the scars of their angst ridden father, whom was often absent because of his demons. Nevertheless, he made amends to the two adult ones in later years and did his best with the third. Sadly, due to conflict with the last mother, he did not know his youngest child.
My brother was a master mechanic. He could fix anything but had a passion for foreign cars. And boy, did he know his shit! My sister and I would regularly take our cars home on the five hour trip (seventeen if she was driving) just to get him to fix whatever was broken. Tim had run his own business since at least 1980. Because of this, he rarely took vacations or days off.
In the spring of 2009, Tim came down with my mother to see my daughter off to prom. Don't ask why he came...I'll never know but it was a weird excuse for a trip. Nevertheless, he came. He was a strange, putrid gray-green color. He looked like a leathery farmer that had seen years of sunlight, except he didn't have the leather look. He was just dark. Tim was a light-skinned black man that now carried the hue of an Indian man, dot, not feather. Looking back, he came with mom because he said he was tired and needed a break. In the next three months, he came, once more, to My daughter's high school graduation. We should have all suspected something then, because the Grinch had taken two weekends off in one year!!
Little did we know, Tim's cancer had begun to take it hold on his liver. He had been going to the doctor but over the course of a year, they missed the cancer over four times. The Hep-c and the damage it had caused to his liver, was exacerbated by all the alcohol Tim had enjoyed over the decades. In August of 2010, my mother begged us to come home and see Tim. She sounded worried and fraught with fear. Tim was the only child that lived near her and since my parents' divorce, he had been her constant companion.
We had just had the family reunion a mere month before and Tim and I had a blast! He was back to his old self. Color was great and he looked fantastic and of course, he was the life of the party. However, when I stepped foot in the house, I didn't recognize the person that stood before me. He looked like an alien...bald head, pale skin and he was at least 50lbs lighter than I had seen him the month before. I immediately went to hide and shed tears because he looked like death. I understood my mother's pain. I felt the shake in my soul....what would I do without my brother?
"No...don't talk like that! There is power of life and death in the tongue. He'll be alright.....Oh Jesus....please help me God! You've got to heal him!!"
All Tim could do was lie in the bed.....this six-foot-three loudmouth was but a weakling, unashamed to be snuggled up beside Ma. I have never known such fear. Over the course of the next five weeks, Tim saw doctors and hid from the world. He hadn't wanted his clients to worry about his business. He was given six weeks to live. We were floored. One day melted into another. It was the year of my 40th birthday. A huge party planned. To be honest, I couldn't even tell you anything about September or October of 2010. I was literally walking through life like a zombie. The grief and drama was too much for my mother and SHE ended up hospitalized. My brother had surprised me and came in for my birthday celebration. He laid on my chaise like a lump with the party bustling around him. Everyone was kind. Many looked scared or sad but most stopped to offer words of encouragement and shake his hand. His attitude was amazing and everyone said he had a light about him. By this time, my strapping brother was down to a pitiful 140lbs. He looked like a ghost.
A couple of years before, Tim had given up drinking and given his life to Christ. That was the cruel joke of the whole thing. As soon as he had stopped drinking, the cancer began to ravage his body In the two years he battled, he thought it was withdrawal from the alcohol causing the symptoms of the cancer. The week following my party, Tim contracted pneumonia. My sister and I took him to the hospital. His lungs had filled with fluid because he was so weak, lying around all day, barely moving. When he was admitted to the hospital, none of us thought, he would NEVER be coming out.
Our days began to meld into another. I remember being so confused as to what to do. Mama was hours away in her own hospital bed, but she didn't want us to leave Tim's side. I can barely remember tag teaming with my sister. I would work while she stayed with Tim and vice-versa. Nine exhausting days we did this. We were incredibly selfish. I missed my kids. She missed her boyfriend. We didn't know how to handle this. I was angry about being the baby of the family, having to shoulder such a responsibility.....Imagine that!!! We both wanted our mother. The days were filled with hospital food, doctor visits, prayers and laughing about the same seven stories every family holds dear.
At some point the doctors came to talk about hospice and Tim's ultimate death. Tim said he would not go to hospice because he was leaving that hospital..."one way or the other." The doctors would look to me for help in getting him to understand the severity of his situation. I didn't know what to do or say. I hadn't been here before. Finally, I had to tell the doctors that Tim knew he was dying, but to agree to hospice, meant he was agreeing to die. In his mind, he would be healed. There, or in Heaven. Tim would not allow. We had many deep conversations in that room.
I asked Tim not to come spook me if he died. We had it like that. At some point, our conversations turned into complete and utter abashed honesty. I told him I was not the sister he needed to be visiting in the middle of the night, moaning "ghostily" ...Siiiiiiiis, Iiiiii ammmm OOOOKKKK!!! He could instead send me signs in my dreams. He agreed. He asked me to live each day "out loud " because he couldn't. He told us we had good men in our lives and that he was proud of us. He told me to take vacations, cherish my children, conquer my fears and live without regrets. He had such a peace about him and I was jealous. In my macabre sense of wonder, I often thought about what it must have been like for him to never make love to a woman again.....to never enjoy a margarita.....to never work on another of his beloved car engines.....I simply wanted to pick up his fragile body, put him in my car and drive him home to the mountains.
I had many of my friends come through and pray for and with Tim. Undoubtedly, they would leave and say that he had charged their faith. If he could be so brave in the face of death, what did we have to worry about? He stopped speaking on a Thursday. He would groan or mumble and only I, or my sister could understand what he was saying. We called for his son to be flown home from his Air Force base and his daughter arrived with her mother and Tim's only grandson. Tim's body had swollen until he looked ten months pregnant. His liver and kidneys had completely shut down and his blood pressure was 50's over 20's. Doctors said he shouldn't even be conscience but there he was, bathing EVERY day and walking himself to the bathroom.
Monday doctors gave us "the talk" and we called in my pastor. He asked Tim if he was "ready?" Tim nodded that he was. He prayed for Tim and Tim raised his hands and said his last audible words...."Thank you Jesus." He was worshipping, right there in the room. I felt the presence of my grandfather and uncle and I knew they were there to take Tim home. Just three hours after they moved Tim down to the hospice wing, he was on his way. Tim waited until we all had lunch. We had all walked back from the main hospital across the street and the room was awkwardly filled with random conversations. My sister sat stunned. I sat beside Tim calling Mama in the hospital so she could talk to him on the phone. His daughter just sat staring at her dad. Her mother, Mary, played catch up with my sister and me. At one point, Tim gestured to me for a Twizzler I was eating. I always regret not giving him that damned Twizzler.
He had barely eaten anything in a few days and I told him no. Five minutes later, I called mama to see if Tim's teenage son would be coming to see his dad. She said his mother was trying to figure it out. I said..."It doesn't look like he's going to make it down...." With that, my brother took three short breaths. It was if he had resigned himself to not seeing his son in time and decided to go on a make his journey. I knew what was happening. I motioned my friend to take my nephew to the waiting room. "Get him outta here..." I screamed. She didn't say a word.....just took him out.
Tim looked over my head towards the presence of my grandfather and I said "Tim...its OK. We love you and we're here." A thin brown fluid ran from his nose and mouth like a faucet. His mouth twisted up into a constricted gnash of teeth. I dialed my mother on the phone and said "Its happening Mama!!' She screamed, cried and told him she loved him as if he could hear her. I just kept telling her I was sorry. She just kept moaning "Oh Tim, Tim, Tim. I love you, Tim, Tim, Tim!" His eyes went dim. I swear...it was like I saw the life leave his body. His body convulsed into a tight ball. My sister and Mary had jumped up and grabbed him to turn him. They could barely sit him back up in the bed. His daughter just grabbed at his feet, crying and telling him she loved him. I ran to the hall to get the nurse but she just strolled down the hall. I guess she knew what was happening, but to this day I don't know how I didn't clothes line her ass. I don't remember what happened to the phone....I don't remember hanging up. I can't imagine what my mother felt in that instance...she was all alone in her hospital room and one of her children was dying.....
I'm sure Tim was gone from his body. It was probably like the movies. Him standing in a corner, asking grandaddy if we could see him. But in the midst of everything, Mary was praying him out. Telling him she loved him, that she always loved him. That he was free. Go with God. My boyfriend at the time arrived less than one minute after his passing and I collapsed in his arms. My head felt hot. I have never passed out but I'm sure that's what it must feel like right before it happens. I screamed a primal noise that I wasn't even sure came from me. All the while feeling like Tim was reaching out to me. No sooner than the heat rose in my head, I heard a voice clear as day....."They have enough going on! They don't need to be picking you up off the floor too!" I immediately stopped and walked over to my brother.
We sat with him for four hours. We took pictures of his hands on a bible that had been gifted him for memory's sake. The picture went on his program. The Bible went to his eldest son. In the room, we sat, talked, laughed and stroked Tim's face. The staff was gracious and kind. I ran to Tim's previous floor to tell them he was gone. They were visibly stunned, remarking how it had only been hours since he had been take to hospice. I reminded them that my brother did things his way. They too had fallen in love with his spirit in the nine days they cared for him. Their pain was real. Their loss was palpable. I thanked them for their compassion. I walked away.
In the next few days, I arranged to have my brother sent home to the mountains. I felt empty and inadequate. I called my ex-husband and asked him to send my youngest to me. I needed someone to take care of. I needed someone to focus on. The morning after Tim died, my baby came and said a man in white came to his room in the middle of the night and told him everything would be alright. I hugged my son tight. I believed what he said. I drove the long trip home and laid my brother to rest. I even sang at his funeral without crying. My sister and I had a good laugh about the terrible job the undertakers did on Tim's body. We could hear Tim yelling, asking who the hell we had in the casket? To this day, I cannot conjure any identifying thing about the body in that casket with my brother except his hands. It helped me to let go...to know that Tim was indeed not in that box, but rather fishing with Grandaddy.
What does this long story have to do with me? The night Tim died, as I slept, I had a dream. It was Tim's voice telling me he was a Lotus. The Lotus is a beautiful sports car that would have driven Tim wild!! The Lotus flower is also a symbol for complete healing and spiritual awakening. It grows through mud and muck only to arrive on the surface of the water, pristine and perfect and without blemish. That was Tim....his life was hard. He was far from perfect. However, his death and how he approached it was perfection. He went out, having said everything to everyone. He was at peace with the outcome and left the earth like we would all like to make our exit, surrounded by family. My promise to him pushes me everyday. When I am scared or doubt my purpose, I remember him. I know in my heart of hearts, he will be there first one to greet me on the other side. I SAW him leave. I KNOW he went somewhere. Its as if the universe gave me a glimpse at a secret. That's what pushes me to keep going.......I know I will see my Lotus again....
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