Stefan’s Death

Last week was … I don’t even know what it was.

Instead of taking part in my parents’ vow renewal ceremony, we were at the lake spreading my brother’s ashes.

On June 7, I had just gotten Lily down for a nap and laid down for one myself.  The phone rang and I considered just letting the machine get it, but I got up and answered.  It was my dad.  He asked me if I was sitting down.  I said no and he told me to sit down.  I did and immediately knew something was up.  I knew something had happened either to my mom or to my brother.  Then he said, "Stefan died today."  He didn’t even try to hide that he was crying.  I asked what happened.  He’d had a seizure and died.  I really wanted it to be a joke.  A really sick joke.

Later, I found out some details.  My mom came home from work at around 7:30am (night shift) and my dad was getting ready to leave for work.  They heard the toilet upstairs flush, so he was alive at 7:30.  He went back to bed and mom went to the computer room (right next to his room) for an hour and a half.  She did this when he woke up that early in case he had a seizure so she could roll him on his side.  She didn’t heard anything after that time, so she stuck a note on the bathroom door saying she’d give him a ride to work.  When she woke up at 3, she went downstairs and had coffee.  She realized she was out of cigarettes, so she was going to take one of my brother’s.  She walked up the stairs and noticed that her note was still on the bathroom door.  Stefan had to be at work at 2.  She opened his door and he was still in bed, laying on his stomach with his face in the pillow.  She called his name twice and he didn’t answer.  Then she went up to him and touched his hand.  He was already cold.  She screamed at him for a while and then ran down the stairs, grabbed her phone and ran over to the neighbor’s house.  She couldn’t dial because she was shaking too badly.  She said she screamed for the neighbor and kept dropping the phone in the driveway.  Tom, our neighbor, had to call for an ambulance.  And he had to call my dad.  He didn’t say what happened, just that my dad needed to come home.  My dad was almost all the way home when he realized that he’d heard my mom screaming in the background.

For me, I got off the phone and started bawling.  I’ve never really been a vocal crier, but I was loud this time.  I just wanted to kick and punch everything and scream until my throat was raw.  My fucking brother was dead.

Truth be told, everyone knew this would happen eventually.  He couldn’t afford his pills and hadn’t been able to in a long, long time.  His seizures were getting worse and more frequent.  It’s just that no one expected it to happen so soon.  No one wanted it to happen.  His new insurance had just kicked in on June 1.  He’d been procrastinating making an appointment with a doctor, but he was going to.  His life insurance kicked in June 1.  What a sick twist.

We left that same night.  Packed a bunch of shit, took the dog to Mandi’s and drove to Indiana.  Did I mention that my sister was already on the road from Indiana to Georgia?  She, her husband and their kids were expecting a great vacation complete with 3 days at the beach and a vow renewal at the end.  They weren’t going to tell her until she got there at first, but later changed their minds.  Three words turned a car full of happy people excited for vacation to a car full of depressed people with a funeral to look forward to.