My Brother’s Last Day: May 21, 2014
This is the last story in a series of three about my family members’ last days. It is the most difficult one to tell, and likely the hardest for you, my reader. Please be aware of your sensitivity to descriptions of suicide before deciding to read further. I’ve struggled with how much to share about the images that plague my mind and the graphic details gleaned from the police and autopsy reports after my brother’s death. While what follows is simply my imagining of his last day, which I’ve written to bring myself a little peace, I honestly don’t know whether or not I have the right to tell it. His story has always been complicated, and ultimately tragic. In my heart, I carry the people who loved my brother and have their own versions of him in their minds. I’ve tried to consider how reading this might affect them, while acknowledging how much I need to get these words out for myself.
When my brother died, it had been eleven years since his first stroke at the of age 33. That one that took his personality, his marriage and his family away from him. His second stroke, three years later, took his body: his balance, the clarity of his speech, his ability to work or drive or even walk without assistance. He changed drastically with each stroke, and the person who emerged was not the older brother I grew up with, the man the mother of his children had married or the father he got to be for too-few years. At times he was optimistic and hopeful, keeping a bucket list and checking things off it, going out to see live music or his best friend’s sons’ baseball games. But he was also irrational, angry, and in so much pain from his limited physical capacity along with the mental anguish of watching our mother age quickly as she slipped further away from us into dementia.
“Were there warning signs?” is a common question asked of those closest to someone who has died by suicide. I’m not sure what purpose this question actually serves. But yes, I was aware that he was succumbing to the darkness cloaking his life. Two months before he died, we had a FaceTime call. The phone camera angled up at him as he raged and begged for some peace and stared at the ceiling in anguish, his eyes red from crying. I lived halfway across the country and felt beyond helpless. I asked him to have his best friend take his guns away for safe keeping and to make an appointment with a doctor in order to access anti-depressants and therapy. He agreed, and he actually followed through. But it wasn’t enough. That phone call was the last time I ever saw him.
Thursday afternoon: dust motes sparkle in the dimness from sunlight sneaking through a crack between the curtains in your mobile home living room. The sparse but well-kept furniture — two recliners, the hand-me-down couch, an entertainment center housing outdated electronics and stacks of DVD’s, your empty gun case — are like soldiers guarding a tomb. In the bedroom, your bed is neatly made. The thick comforter I bought two decades ago for my freshman dorm room is tacked up over the window, blocking out the day. Taped on every wall are magazine clippings, inspirational quotes, motivational printouts, sticky note to-do lists. Each one is highlighted, comments added to the sentiments, affirming your agreement in ALL CAPS and exclamation points!!! Once, these served as faithful talismans tethering you to this world; now they’re just scraps of paper. This frozen scene hasn’t changed, save the steady ticking of a clock, for the past 24 hours.
Rewind to Wednesday morning: you didn’t sleep much the night before. Staring up at the ceiling from this bed for the 2,435th morning, the feedback in your head is deafening. The swarm of bees inside your stroke-damaged brain rarely lets up, but today it’s particularly bad. Adding insult to injury, the birds outside are raucously announcing their springtime return. Instead of a joyful song heralding the end of winter’s darkness, the incessant noise torments you. “WHY WON’T THEY JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP???!!!??!” you ask angrily. Unperturbed, the birds carry on.
Out of bed, you walk with a cane to your wheelchair and fall in heavily. Wearing only boxer shorts, you shuffle your feet, pacing between the bedroom and the kitchen. A pile of dirty dishes from yesterday greets you. Usually meticulous with your housekeeping, you think “Fuck it,” and let them sit.
Every day is a struggle, and your prisons are many. The body that constantly fails you. A brain that tortures you. This depressing trailer “home” where you live, alone. Our small hometown you’d once escaped from to build a life in Milwaukee, only to be plunked right back here after your second stroke. Your friends and sister all have busy, distracted lives of their own. Your mother, lost to dementia, is slowly dying in a nursing home a mile away. You are powerless to save her, or yourself. Today is the day you stop fighting and let go of the thread.
On the kitchen counter, the butcher-block knife holder offers an invitation. Grabbing a paring knife, you lumber the wheelchair to the bathroom attached to your bedroom. Thinking ahead to whomever it will be to find your body, you want to make their job a little easier (your past years of experience as an EMT and firefighter, plus your deep respect for law enforcement, will always be part of who you are.)
Inside the small, dark space, you sit on the shower stall bench. The skylight above bathes you in softness. Hands on your knees, holding the knife, you stare upwards. Tears stream down your face; a growl of frustration escapes your throat. You are desperate to get away from the pain you’ve been trapped in for what feels like an eternity. Gripping the knife hard, you take a deep breath. “Just end it, already,” you think.
You send the knife to your neck, nicking the skin. You are scared. You try again, and again. These will be diagramed as “hesitation marks” on your autopsy report. There is no turning back; adrenaline surges. Resolved, you plunge the knife to your chest. And once more. You’ve punctured your left lung. Quickly, you stab two more times at your neck, yelling as you push yourself over into death and fall from the bench. You hit your eye on the wheelchair and skin your knees as you hit the ground, landing half in and half out of the shower. The knife falls from your hand. The violence and your despair are done. Your body is still, engulfed in blood that washes you away from the shores of this earthly life. Your spirit is released, and you fly over the trailer park, over this town, across a great lake, higher and higher. You are everywhere at once. You are free.
Fast forward: your body lies motionless through the afternoon, night, the next morning. The stillness is broken early that Thursday afternoon with a knock, the turning of the key. A man’s voice calls out with authority, “Marinette Police. This is a wellness check. Anybody home?”
The reply is silence.
