My brother, David

i have no idea what to say. but then eric told me that my mom has been writing about it so i guess i decided to too.

three days ago we found out that my only brother (i have a step brother and sister, sorta) died. we’re not sure how, but it seems to be natural causes. we’re waiting on the autopsy and toxicology reports. most people who have been here, friends and family, surmise that it was some sort of anyurism. i don’t know if that’s the way to spell it and i don’t care. it’s not supposed to be part of my vocabulary.

the first day, tuesday, was the hardest. i was driving home so my parents called eric so he could tell me once i got home so i would be safe, but i made him tell me before. i was on melrose, 5 minutes away. i remember howling ‘no’ over and over again and saying ‘tell me your kidding’. i just couldn’t understand. i’d just seen him over thanksgiving.

i don’t talk about him a lot. as kids, probably up till junior high, maybe high school, we were super close. it was just me and him and other children on our streets we’d play with, but it was just me and him and we had so much fun together.

as he aged, he got a little weird. a little hard to deal with. it’s hard to explain, but he just didn’t fit in. never felt he did and there was a time when he was pretty negative to be around so i chose not to. well, to an extent. we were always in touch, just not close.

it’s absolutely surreal and i can sit here and write about this because it’s like something in me shuts down and i pretend the world as it is, just normal. but it’s not and then at these random intervals i feel myself so consumed with a sadness i have NEVER known. and anger.

he used to watch tv laid out on the carpet, on his stomach. he was always sitting or laying on the floor. he just liked it. and i guess his landlord got concerned when the tv was on for too long and they found him laid out watching tv, eyes closed.

i’m at my parents house still, with my step brother and we were talking a bit about it over breakfast and we all agreed that it was the best thing one could hope for is that you were doing something you enjoyed, just watching tv, you close your eyes to sleep and then you don’t wake up. and that helps. if it was caused by someone else, i’d want to fucking rip them to shreds.

i watch my parents and at intervals we all break down, but when they do, jesus, it kills me. it happened a couple times last night. a handful of my friends, my old friends from san marino, came over and brought food and stuff and every time a parent or me would lose it we’d be enveloped in a huge hug. and i guess that’s all you do. you just keep going on, taking it one day at a time till it doesn’t hurt so much.

i don’t like being alone. i’ve only been a few times on the drive from hollywood to pasadena or likewise and that’s when i do my bawling and my everything that i don’t do when other people are around. when there are others there are distractions and there’s a need to be strong for them.

i could have been so much better to him. he always looked up to me in the latter years and i became somewhat anti-social for a bit and just not wanting to deal. and i know now that a phone call every few weeks wouldn’t have been much at all. but i can’t take back that i didn’t do it with David, my real brother. and i’m not beating myself up about it, i just know it as a fact and i hope i learn from it and i hope that wherever he is he knows how i feel and how much i regret that.

and as i said, he never really was truly happy in this world. it was tough for him as he grew older. if there was one reason for him to have been here it’s to have taken care of my grandparents. he did a stellar job and without him, no one would have known what to do, because they didn’t want to go into a hospice. so he took care of them at their home and lived with him.

my brother was scarily smart and a very talented writer. he never really found his place in this world and i hope to god he is happy and peaceful wherever he is, maybe with my grandparents.

i don’t really know how to do this. grandparents dying are different. it just is. it’s SUPPOSED to happen. it hurts, but it’s inevitable.

and i just don’t know how to do this. i always thought he’d mellow out, find a girl, we’d grow old together and take care of my parents when they needed it, but not anymore. i feel very, very alone sometimes. even though i know i’m not – i know i have eric and my parents, but my brother’s gone. and there were only two of us, so there’s that alone thing.

i saw him on thanksgiving. oh, if only i’d known. i want to say goodbye to him more than i can express.

i will love and miss my brother till the day that i die.

(my mom’s diary is here: http://www.opendiary.com/entryview.asp?authorcode=C100057&entry=20038&mode=date you’ll have to copy and paste because i can’t remember how to link.)