Wish You Were Here

 

My little brother died last November.

I always assumed someone would tell me, that there would be some effort to contact the next of kin. But there wasn't.

Mona searched the web for his address, and instead found his obituary.

In truth, I had lost him years earlier to mental illness and drug addiction.

When he was younger he was an extremely talented artist, with showings in many local galleries in San Francisco. When he grew older he became delusional and prone to violent outbursts.

He knew our soft spots and would use them to manipulate us for money. He would call my parents and say that a loan shark was after him and would hurt him if he didn't come up with $300. Then he would call me and say he had an abscessed tooth and was in horrible pain, and he needed $300 to see the dentist.

Eventually we noticed the scripts never varied.

He could be peaceful and loving, but when his demons hit him he could also be dangerously violent. He was kicked out of several apartments and half-way houses for assaulting the staff.

One time he showed up at my parent's house and didn't want to leave. I bought him a plane ticket and drove him to the airport, but until the plane actually took off I had no idea if he was going to get on or insist on staying. I don't know what we would have done.

The last time I spoke with him he told me everything I wanted to hear: he was about to start a new job, he was trying to reconnect with his family, he might sign up for a class at the community college.

Then he told me in detail about the talking snake that lived under his sink, how it had bitten him and now he glowed and could see things other people couldn't.

It wasn't a huge shock when I learned of his death. Somehow I knew that he would not live to be an old man.

But it hurt more than I thought it would.

I think what I'm really mourning is the hope that things would someday get better.

When an indigent person dies in San Francisco they are cremated, and their ashes are scattered in the Pacific Ocean. This is supposed to be a process that lasts several months, to give the family time to claim the remains. In practice, it happens almost immediately.  By the time we knew, it was too late.

I'm okay with that.

A human body is mostly water, and when cremated the water is released into the clouds. John rained down over the land and seas, and now he's part of the grass, the trees, the flowers; the butterflies and birds and fishes. He's everywhere, in everything.

But I wish he were here.