July 2021

I loved him with fierce and unrelenting devotion. It was like breathing. He would let me sneak up into his tree house with his friends when there were no other girls allowed, but he was always worried that I would fall. He was protective in a world where no one protected me. He was my first hero, my male role model, my only brother. With him I mattered. Even when he disappeared from my everyday life, as his being crumbled into a million splintering pieces with crime and drugs, we held a connection, like a fragile, translucent piece of hand blown glass, rare, unique and priceless. Breakable.

I wasn’t very old by the time Dan and my elder sister were both gone and for better or worse, left me to be the caretaker of my younger sisters and broken, mentally ill, alcoholic mother. My brother was in and out of my life, sometimes for years at a time. But he phoned me faithfully on my birthday. Without fail. Until he stopped. I used to imagine I’d get a call saying he was in a gutter somewhere, dead from an overdose. I tried to not see that image, but it haunted me.

I always saw the innate goodness in him. He was a gentleman, a tender soul with a heart of gold, the guy who would return something better than he found it. I remember when he borrowed a friend’s car and something went wrong with it that wasn’t his fault, yet he insisted on paying for the repairs because he was the one driving it at the time. I realized the meaning of integrity that day. He was the guy who prized honesty above everything else which was such an odd dichotomy given his addiction, the thievery and the demons that ran through his head mercilessly crying out for negative attention just to be seen. To me, it seemed like he was always doing penance for something he wasn’t guilty of and that manifested profoundly in my young girl bones. Somehow his shame was connected to mine and didn’t belong to either of us. It was forced on us by our own mother, religious men, and desperate stepfathers who shrouded us in dark corners and insidious secrets. I didn’t blame Dan. I understood because I lived in that house too and while none of us ever talked about it, each of my four siblings lived out their trauma with different responses, none of it healthy. We all carried pain, hard to identify to an untrained eye or the outside world. I was the only one who chose to get better. To recognize the power of my own resilience. To heal. It’s a really lonely and isolating road to travel and it is stunningly difficult to see the benefits of while you’re immersed in the work. You don’t know it’s worth it until you’re on the other side and even then you still live in quicksand. 

My brother never really grew from that little boy who felt lost and abandoned. The boy who hid behind a bush and watched my mother and father fight as my dad walked away with another woman and never looked back. Dan was his only son but dad willingly abandoned him to go have another one with someone else. One he would spoil and lavish his wealth on while we struggled, starved and went without. I remember knowing that my brother felt a specific pain that I could never understand even though we were all affected by my dad’s absence and apathy. I also began to see the ripple effects of my own strength of character and my ability to be there for those I loved. Something deep inside me wanted to just hold Dan’s heart but that was a fracture that couldn’t be repaired externally and I watched my brother chase acceptance and belonging for his entire existence after that. How could a young boy find the language for or know where to put that kind of pain, that kind of hollow heartbreak? I think It left him forever insatiable, forever wanting. In later years when my dad tried to reconnect and make things right it was too late for atonement. Even though he took my brother under his wing and tried to do the right thing, nothing could fill that gaping, dark chasm that had been left by my dad’s decision. He ended up stealing from my dad, doing drugs on the job and risking my dad’s contracting license. In an unhealthy attempt at penance my dad would give him chances over and over and over. The whole thing was so dysfunctional and tragic. Sometimes you can’t fix a mistake, you can only watch the consequences play out and some wounds never heal, they just bleed onto other people.

I always treated Dan like he was capable even when he kept stumbling and falling, bruising, battering and bloodying his knees. It didn’t matter that I was younger than him, that I felt alone in the world. I could be there for him and it meant something to me to do that. In high school when I was living on my own, I was the liaison between my brother and family when he was in prison. He would write letters asking me for money, for confidentiality, for favors and to soften the edges for what he needed to tell mom. I always did what I could for him. And later when I had my own family I shared them with him because I knew he would never have one of his own. He was too frightened by his own past to ever try to create a future for someone else. He couldn’t hold on to a meaningful relationship or anything permanent. Yet, I never saw so much joy in anyone’s face as when he was around my children. He exuded pure love for them. He was totally free, the self he was before he didn’t feel worthy. The self he was before the world told him he didn’t matter. One year for Christmas he bought my daughters new bikes because that was a luxury we never enjoyed as kids. He wanted to make up for everything he never had, for everything he never felt. We had a shared understanding that he would never come around my family when he was high. He attempted to get his life together and then sabotaged it just as quickly. His demons followed him, broke his spirit. 

But he remained remarkable to me. Maybe he’s where I learned to love unconditionally. Maybe he’s where I learned to look past flaws, faults and weakness to see potential, beauty and light. Maybe he’s where I learned that I’m an empath, even though I didn’t know what it was at the time. I’m certain he’s also where I learned to make boundaries. That I had a right and a responsibility to protect myself. In so many ways he gave me purpose and I did the same for him. In just as many ways he broke my heart. 

Dan walked me down the aisle at my second wedding. That remains my favorite memory with him, because in that moment he was exactly the man he was intended to be. The picture of us, with his spontaneous laugh and dancing eyes, brings me joy to this day. It’s just me and him, no damaged goods, shattered confidence or broken promises. 

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A couple months ago I finally discarded the letters that he had written me from prison. As much as I adore him and hold a place in my heart for him I have to put my energy where it is welcomed and reciprocated. He has allowed himself to become a user of people and he’s barely recognizable now in his behavior. He eventually abandoned me and my girls, with venom and spite. It hurt for a long time and then I sent him peace and let him go. Maybe my unconditional love was just too much of a burden for him. Maybe he just ran out of fight. Shame will make you believe that you don’t deserve happiness. 

His will remain a lesson for a life unfinished. Yet, for one gorgeous, golden, glimmering season he was my hero. For that, for my brother, I will always be grateful.