After three tries and three girls, the first of two boys in our family, was born. Since my mother reserved celebrity names for her sons, she named her first ‘Michael Douglas’. Michael was three years younger than me and I was close to only him; no one else in the family. I think at first I felt close to him without actually being close to him,(if that makes any sense), but as we got older and I spent more time with him, taking care of him and our youngest brother, we became so connected, talking and confiding in each other and eventually hanging out within the same social circles. He had a beautiful smile and a wicked sense of humor, always laughing and joking around and I loved being around him - his nickname, “Smiley”. He watched out for me although he was my younger brother, very protective and always made me feel safe.
I remember standing in the kitchen on a sunny afternoon watching Michael and his friend Paul, dancing around in the back of the kitchen, behind the table, laughing and trying to fish in my fish tank. At the time I had no idea what I was really seeing; just two young kids being mischievous. I yelled at them to get away from the fish tank and go outside to fool around. After a good long while, more of my pleading and more of their laughing, they finally left. A while later I would come to understand that what I had actually witnessed was my brother and his friend high; he was thirteen. I had no idea what “high” was or “looked” like back then but in time, I would become an expert in knowing when anyone was high on anything, anywhere within my general vicinity.
My brother came to know drugs at the age of thirteen from his friends. I would come to know drugs from my brother; not that I did any at that time but through my relationship and experience with him. I would ask him pointed questions about whether he was high or not, what he was on, where he got it from. It was a very truthful education which I did not share with anyone else; my brother trusted me and I loved him. As Michael got older, he was getting in trouble in school and my parents were always being summoned to the principal's office. Although nothing was ever discussed within the family, I always knew when something was going on with my brother.
I remember when he was fifteen, I heard that he had pulled a knife on someone at school and although my parents tried to keep him from getting kicked out, he was ultimately suspended. And it progressed from there. At that point, he was doing more than smoking pot and I then became aware of a whole array of drugs readily available; free basing coke, dropping acid, shooting up heroin, combined with pills and/or alcohol and on it went. The older he got, the more hard core the drugs and a change in his personality. He became easily agitated, would come home at 1, 2, 3:00 in the morning and be demanding that my parents give him money, yelling, threatening and punching holes in the walls, doors, wherever his fists would land. My parents did their best to control the situation, sometimes able to quell his anger, but more times than not, it would continue to escalate until it became physical and he took or got what he wanted and would disappear back out into the night, leaving his path of destruction behind for the rest of us to deal with.
I remember not sleeping, being fearful of what he would do, so out of control and wishing it would stop; he would stop. He was having run ins with the law to the point where when I would come home at night after being out with friends, I never knew what I would run into but I knew for sure it would be something. Police at our house became the norm. I remember this one night as I turned into our street, I saw the cop cars and lights in our driveway; the neighbors standing in the shadows watching. My brother was locked in his car, the cops were ordering him to step out of the vehicle and my mother was standing in the doorway yelling at them not to hurt him, hysterical. I walked up to her, told her to shut up and get inside and then stood firm against the door, listening to her whaling while outside, my brother pulled a knife, the cops eventually got a hold of him and subdued him and he was whisked off to jail. Apparently he was driving reckless, hit a fence and parked car and the cops had followed him home. As he was being taken away, I walked into the house where my mother told me to go down to the police station because she couldn’t bring herself to go. Really…….
During these few years when things were escalating and my brother was out of control, I would plead with him, cry to him to stop. Stop the drugs, stop the violent outbursts, please stop. I was hurt for him, helpless to do anything but stand by and watch and I took it very personally; if he really loved and cared about me he would see how much I was hurt and stop. Apparently I made it all about what he was doing to me and not really seeing him in all of it.
I started out talking to him about how I felt, then crying to him about how hurt I was and that too escalated into arguments that progressed into huge fights, which ended the day we had a physical fight where I lashed out at him, fists flying, so angry and hurt. He held me upside down, in a closet, by my arms until I stopped. When he finally let me go, we walked away from each other, silently. At that moment, something inside me broke; it was our connection and I felt betrayed and utterly abandoned.
I distanced myself and became the watchman along with my younger brother and his friends; I would stay awake all night, every night, while my brother Michael laid in the room across from me and I would listen to him take every breath, afraid that he would just stop. I did not sleep for a good year, afraid if I closed my eyes for one second, I would lose him. My younger brother and his friends would look out for him while out at night and found him od’d at least three times. And during this time, because I could no longer reach him, I would try to reason with my mother. When she defended my brother and blamed all of his friends for giving him drugs, I would let her know that he was the one dealing to them, not the other way around. When she downplayed how bad it was, I would tell her that he had overdosed at least three times that we knew of and it was a good thing that someone had found him or he would be dead. She never believed any of it and continued to enable him to the point where she pretty much told the rest of us to get out of the house,stay away from him and not upset him and then gave him money to buy street drugs when he couldn’t get legitimate prescriptions for drugs from the doctors.
While my brother avoided jail by opting to do three month stints in rehab - back then there were no three strikes and you were out - it was never really a genuine effort on his part and as soon as he was done at rehab, he would be back to dealing, back to drugging and back to his pattern of self destruction. During one of his stints away, the rest of the family went to a group counseling session where we discussed my brother for the first time. It was to be my last. At that session, my younger sister blamed my brother’s problems on me, telling everyone I was the one that had given him the drugs to start with. I was stunned by her statement and although I told them all it wasn’t true, that he was doing drugs before I even knew what “drugs” were, my mother, until the day she died, still believed that I was completely to blame.
After that, I knew two things; I could not do anything about this situation nor about what anyone else blamed me for and for the first time, acknowledged to myself that my brother was going to kill himself. And I distanced myself from him, from them all and just waited to receive the call that would let me know that he had succeeded; all this time waiting anxiously in a state of suspended fear. In February of 1995 the phone rang and I knew; it was my parents letting me know that my brother had died, my mother saying something about his heart giving out. I said nothing except “Thank you for letting me know,” and hung up the phone; it was finally over, I was devastated. Later I would see the death certificate and read that a combination of lethal drugs had stopped his heart. At the funeral, my younger sister who had wrongfully accused me, asked me why I was not crying for my brother, she thought we were close. I said to her, “ I cried all of my tears for Michael when he was alive. I have no more tears left to cry.” And I didn’t, not for him and not for anyone else for a very long time. I was completely empty.
Years later I would learn that my brother had been diagnosed “Bi-polar” within a few months of his death and I would also come to understand that his behaviour and what he did had nothing to do with me at all and had no bearing on how he felt about me. That he had been in so much pain and tried to deal with it best he could in the only way that he knew how or chose to know. My biggest regret; that I had not stood by him, not in support of what he was doing but in support of him, my brother, my best friend, not judging him but simply continuing to love him; the one thing I had accused him of not doing for me. I was so sorry I had let all those years pass without a word, without being there, seeing or talking to him and allowing our last interaction to be a physical altercation. And I regretted how self-centered I had been. I could not forgive myself for abandoning him and it would be many, many years later when I began to try.
It is not easy to admit to yourself of those moments in your life when you were at your worst. It is harder still to forgive yourself. But I had also come to realize that the devastation I felt at what I had perceived to be, I ended up bringing along as a constant companion throughout my whole life and it impacted me and the relationships that I had. The abandonment theme played heavily in my story, with myself in the starring role as the victim until I saw the truth of the other person and allowed them to be who they were, respectfully, without inserting myself egotistically. And the only way I found to forgive myself was to talk to my brother honestly and to say that I was sorry and hope that he could hear me. Trust me, they do.
Have I forgiven myself completely? I am not sure if I have and I am still sorry that I didn’t stay by him and make him feel safe, as he did for me, but I have come to terms with a very naive girl who, without any knowledge of love and compassion and selflessness, did the best that she could with what she had. I just still wish I could have done better. But then we all know that we need to be careful of what we wish for, but that is a story for another time.
So, whose keeper are you?
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