Tuesday, August 14, 2001

Sudden Events

I remember that night clearly, a little over a year ago. One of those nights that when you hear the phone ring, you're sure that not only is it not a wrong number, it's going to be bad, very bad, news. While you walk over to answer the phone, you start running through the list of possibles such as sick relatives or who might have been in an accident.

I remember... I had gotten home around a little past 10 from my girlfriend's place where we had spent the evening doing some shopping and watching TV. I was sitting up for a bit, catching up on some reading and was pretty far into the book that I wasn't paying attention to how late it was getting. On a normal night, I would have already gone to bed and I would have never heard the downstairs phone. When the phone rang at 11:55pm, I had that sense of dread because it was past that time that you get normal phone calls or normal wrong numbers. I don't remember if I let the answering machine screen it or not (I probably did as I usually do) but picked it up as soon as I heard Mom's voice.

"Your brother and sister-in-law have been in an accident." Five seconds in and we're out in the deep water where I can't tell where the bottom is. Where the really big scary things swim in the dark and you really wish you weren't going to find out how big they can be. Time slips, your senses go numb as you wait for the rest of the news. News that can't be good, otherwise they'd have waited until morning to call. News that might be, "come quick" because there's not much time. Or the worst, "there's nothing to be done, it's already finished and we need to make preperations tomorrow".

Time starts again in slow motion as I find out that my brother made it, but my sister-in-law never left the scene. Their daughter wasn't with them in the car. Nothing else to do until morning because they'll be releasing him in a few hours.

Time starts to pickup pace and I start to triage what needs doing before I completely lose it. How long will the shock last; can I function long enough to pack for a few days, what should I pack, where do I think I'm going, should I stay by myself or go back over to my girlfriends and tell her the news (not something I was willing to do over the phone and it really shouldn't be waited until morning). Auto-pilot on, get started packing, figure it will be a few days away, leave a message with my co-worker on his voice mail, pack a suit, pack my laptop, get in the car and start driving back across town.

Time's pacing is approaching normal by the time I wake her up and get her to let me in. We sat on the couch and cried for a good hour... I crashed in the guest room and tossed and turned for an hour; starting to think about the 101 things that would need doing in the morning. Wondering what my role would be, wondering how my brother was doing, wondering how he was coping with his parents, wondering, wondering, wondering... So I do what I'm wont to do when I have a million things running through my mind, I start to write down everything that I think needs doing, write it down and let it stop circling around my head, emotional things, tasks that will need doing, possible legal issues, benefits, funeral arrangements, cemetary plot, possible suicide watch?

Morning came all too soon as I got a ride from my girlfriend down to my parents house where we had agreed to meet in the morning. I had pretty much decided by then that I would make the offer to my brother that I could take a few days off and assist him if he wanted. I wasn't sure he would say yes; but I was packed and ready.

You see, my brother and I have never really gotten along (as long as we both lived under the same roof that is). Would he think that I was trying to intrude, to do things for him as if he were still a child (which he detests)? Was I being intrusive by even offering to come stay with him? Had we rebuilt enough bridges over the past few years; had the efforts of his wife and my girlfriend to get us to cross those chasms paid off?

I was pretty sure he would turn me down and do things himself, but I wasn't 100% sure and so I made the offer.

Yes, I was morbidly happy that he said that he wanted my help.

I remember when I showed up at his house (driving my grandmother's car) and walked up the front, he was outside working on the hedges with a set of hedge clippers. It was unreal. You don't expect normal activities to take place in the middle of a hurricane. I wondered (briefly) about his sanity, had he gone over the edge? No, just a way of coping with something that still seemed surreal, a place and time where we could pretend that things were normal and I was just stopping by for a visit to chat while he worked on the yard for a bit. He was moving with determination, doing chores and trying to carve out just a little more normal before the events overtook us. I don't remember what we talked about at first, probably the lawn or the house or the chores or his daughter, anything but the topic at hand. Eventually, he started to recount the events of the past night and we settled in for an evening of making phone calls and trying to start making arrangements to find a funeral home; I started making my lists and keeping track of details as he told them to me. (My brother quickly learned to call me "his secretary".)

You have to understand, none of us had seen his wife. There was no hospital stay where you realize that a person is deathly ill and you see death approaching. Your last memory of the person is of them alive; you're taking the word of complete strangers that she's gone ... but you've not seen it with your own eyes. You hope that you're dreaming, that this is just a bad nightmare, it's all so sudden.

It was surreal to make arrangements on Sunday and Monday. It's the only word that fits. Here you are, making funeral arrangements for someone close to you where a few days earlier you might have been making dinner plans. We were at the funeral home for almost 3 hours making the arrangements on Sunday; it felt like 12.

I'll continue this later...

posted by Wuphon's at 9:52 PM