What My Brother's Death Taught Me

Eight years ago today, my family and I began a journey. This journey is a rather interesting one, for many reasons. No luggage is needed. There’s no airfare of train tickets to buy. Sightseeing isn’t involved. This journey is one of many different feelings, moods, and emotions. It’s a journey of pain, despair, anguish, tears, nightmares, and confusion, yet it is also one of hope, peace, learning, consolation, faith, and love. It’s also a unique journey in that it is one that will never be finished. It began on this date eight years ago, and it will not end for the rest of our lives.

We also didn’t know that we began this journey eight years ago today—it took us until the next day. That’s a day I will always remember. It was early in the morning, and I was getting ready to walk out to the school bus. Our phone rang, which was odd, because no one ever called in the morning. On the other end of the line, from across the room, I could hear no words, but what sounded like screaming. This look came across my dad’s face—I’m still trying to figure out what exactly that look was, but it was one that I had never seen before. He told me to go to the bus stop. I asked what was going on. He looked at me. (In our house, it was considered, rightly so, disrespectful to make our parents ask you to do something twice.) So, I did what dad told me to do. I walked to the end of the driveway to wait for the bus. I looked down our long driveway and saw my dad’s silhouette pacing back and forth in our living room—the only light coming from the glow of the television broadcasting the morning news. I wondered what exactly this news dad was receiving was. The bus pulled in front of me and stopped. I got on, and for the entire day, I was wondering. What was the phone call about? Who was on the other end? Why did they seem so distressed? What was with that look on dad’s face?

When I got home, my questions were answered. Dad usually waited for me at the end of the driveway to get off of the bus. Today was different—he wasn’t there. I walked down our long driveway, opened the door, and found my dad pacing, with a nervous look on his face. He had that “you’re home early” look about him when he saw me, although I got home at the same time I did every day. I knew something was wrong—I could tell there was something he didn’t want to tell me. Something really was going on.

Then, he told me. I wish he hadn’t, but I know he had to. The conversation is forever engraved in my memory.

“I had to go to your aunt's house today.”

Why?

“I never thought I would have to say this to you. I don’t know how to say it, so I’m just going to—your brother, Anthony…”

Yeah? What about him?

My brother had maybe a year or so before been released from jail. He was recently married, had a job, and seemed to really be doing well. His life was getting back on track. By the way, I don’t know what he did to end up in jail, and I don’t want to know. I’m not curious, either, because knowing what he did doesn’t change the outcome of the conversation I had with my dad…

“Tony, that call I got this morning was from your mother. Your brother hadn’t shown up for work yesterday and they were worried, so she went and got your aunt and they checked in on him. Son…your brother is….He’s dead. They found him this morning. He committed suicide.”

WHAT?!

“I know, it’s hard to hear…it’s hard to say, but…”

I don’t remember if dad actually ever finished that sentence, because I didn’t let him. I did all I felt I could do. I threw my backpack to the ground, ran down the hall to my room, slammed the door. I screamed, and I cried, and I threw things. I did anything I could to make myself believe that dad was lying to me. It just couldn’t be true. I refused to believe what I had just been told.

But I knew better. Dad wasn’t lying. My brother was gone. I was confused, and I was angry. I even became angry with God. My mind just couldn’t comprehend that the good and loving God that I was learning about in my Confirmation classes would do something like this to me. (See how selfish I sound…I was an eighth grader. Give me a break!) Once I calmed down, I went out of my room, and saw my dad sitting on the floor. He was crying. I had never seen my dad cry before. I didn’t know that he could! My big brother wasn’t my dad’s biological son—he was my half-brother, and we shared a mom. But, that didn’t mean that my dad didn’t love him. He treated him as if he were his own son. That day when I lost a brother, both of my parents lost a son.

This whole situation was difficult. I really didn’t know who to talk to. I knew my parents were in enough pain, and I remember the counselor at school telling me to just focus on my schoolwork, and everything would be fine. (By the way, that’s really, really, really bad advice. If someone ever tells you to ignore how you’re feeling, don’t walk out of their office—run.) So, I did what my counselor suggested. I threw myself into my schoolwork. I didn’t talk about what happened. It wasn’t that it was something shameful—it was just something painful. Something no one else would probably understand.

At the end of the week, we had my brother’s funeral. I remember having to miss part of my confirmation retreat, and that explaining why I was gone half of the day to the other kids was the first time I really said anything about it. I was actually angry again. My brother promised me he would be there for my confirmation. He didn’t keep his promise. (Once again…selfish eighth grader) After that, I didn’t really talk about it again until my senior year in high school on our retreat.

For the most part, I got over the anger issues I had with God. I came to the realization that in this place where I was—the darkest place I had ever been, I needed someone. I didn’t want to feel like a burden to my family and cause them grief. My school counselor told me to do nothing. So, there was no one else to turn to except God. I was still angry with Him, and don’t worry, I let Him know. But there’s something I noticed—even when I was angry with God, and saying some stuff that merited confession and probably earned me some purgatory time, He didn’t leave. I always felt His presence there with me. I came to the realization that He was going to be the one to pull me out of this dark place. Among the lessons I would come to learn in the days, weeks, months, and years that followed my brother’s death, this lesson about God was an important one.

It was important, because it was a real experience with the love of God that my Sunday school teacher kept talking about. I felt like He actually cared about me. I learned that God is the parent that’s always there, to help carry us through anything. He’s the best friend with the listening ear, and the best advice and consolation around. He’s the one that loved me so much, that He was willing to enter His creation as a human, just like me—to come to earth, to live, and to die, so that I could have a chance at spending eternity in Heaven with Him.

In this experience, I also learned a lot about prayer. Since God was my main guy I was talking to, that naturally meant I was doing a lot of praying. And, it’s really the first time I remember actually praying. Not the “silly” prayers we do when we’re little—“Dear God, please let me win the kickball game!” No, this prayer was serious, and it’s the first time I remember praying, on my own, for someone else. Once I got past my anger, I was able to start praying for him. I started praying for him. He’s been a part of my prayer almost every single day since then. Specifically, now that I’m in seminary and go to Mass every day, he’s a part of my prayers at every single Mass that I go to.

After a while, this prayer got boring—it got dry. So, without really realizing it, I stopped. I didn’t feel like it was working, so what’s the point? That was a horrible decision.

Something I’ve learned about losing a loved one is that, in some ways, they are always with you. There have been times when I’ve seen someone across the street that looks exactly like my brother. There have been times when I walk by someone or even have a conversation with someone, and their voice is exactly like his.

One day, that happened to me. I walked by someone—I think they were talking on the phone. In that conversation, this guy asked the person on the other end of the line, “Why did you stop?”

It hit me like a piano falling on a cartoon character. That guy sounded just like my brother. I realized that it had been so long since I prayed for my brother. I felt horrible. That day, I started praying again, and I never stopped, and I never will.

A few months after my brother’s death, I was having a rough day. It was another one of those low points where I felt like God didn’t really love me. It was one of those days of confusion where I tried to figure out the answer to a question that will never be answered—why my brother took his own life. Not that we were insanely close, but still, he was my brother. I couldn’t figure it out. That day taught me a lesson in how God reveals Himself, always at the right time.

I was cleaning up my room and I opened my closet to put something in it. Right in front of me, on the back of a shelf, a box caught my eye. I took it out of the closet, sat on my bed, and opened it. In the box—letters. Letters from my brother. I started to read them. I read of how he decided to try to start going to school again while he was in jail. I read of how very sorry he was for his crimes—how he really was a changed person. I read of how that change, in part, came about from beginning to build a relationship to God while he was behind bars. I read of lessons that he was trying to teach me that I apparently ignored until now. “Think about everything you do before you do it” “Actions have consequences” “Stay in school, and keep going to church—it may be boring, but it is worth it” “Don’t end up like me” “Love and respect your dad and our mom—you won’t know how much they mean to you until they’re gone”. Here I was, months after my brother had died, sitting on my bed, learning lessons from him. Learning about how powerful God is. Learning about what His love could do. My dad and I have moved a few times since then, so all but one of the letters has been lost. But, I remember what he said, and I’ve tried my best, even today, to take to heart those lessons he was trying to teach me so many years ago.

Losing a loved one is a painful experience, no matter how it happens. But, maybe this is me being selfish again, I feel like losing a loved one by them taking their own life is even more painful. It doesn’t give any opportunity for real closure, and it so easily leads us to questioning ourselves—“Could I have done anything?” “What should I have done differently?” “Is this my fault?”

My brother’s death and the years that have followed have involved pain, and they’ve involved suffering, yet they’ve involved consolation. They’ve involved confusion, yet they’ve involved clarity. They’ve involved despair, yet there’s been moments of hope. These past eight years have felt in many ways like a big, long, roller coaster ride. It has at times been easy to think of this journey as a nightmare that I will never wake up from, or a horror movie that never ends. But, I’ve tried, and I think I’m doing a good job at this, to make this a journey of learning. To make this a journey that will make me and others better people. To make this a journey that gives my brother’s life more purpose.

One of my favorite movies is “The Help”. There’s one line in it that I feel like I have been able to relate to so much. Abilene is speaking to Skeeter about her son’s death. In a very emotional moment, she said, “every year that day comes and I can’t breathe—and to y’all it’s just another day of bridge.” When my brother died, I think I speak for my whole family when I say our world stopped turning. It was so sudden, so shocking. It didn’t make sense. It was hard to see that while our world came to a screeching halt, the world around us kept moving about, as if nothing happened. There have been days when I’ve felt that way. But, as time as gone one, although there is still pain, I’ve learned, with God’s grace and help, that life keeps going on and the world keeps turning, and that everything will be okay.

This journey has been a tough one, but it has been one that has taught me so much. I have learned that in life, there are simply some questions that will never be answered, and that’s okay. I’ve learned that we all have some sort of cross that we have to bear, and that this very well could be mine, but that God has a reason for everything, and our cross is never more of a load than we can bear. I’ve learned so much about who God is. I’ve learned in so many profound ways that He does love me. I’ve learned that He will never leave me. I’ve learned that prayer works, and that it’s powerful. I’ve learned that even when life gives us something difficult, with God’s help, good can always come from it.

Please pray for my brother. Pray for all of those who have taken or have thought about taking their own lives, and pray for their families.

In all things, may God be glorified.

Amen.