Extremely Sad and Incredibly Close –

Nov. 15, 2019 – “I had a drink last night. It was an experiment.”

My heart sank. That was five years ago. Over that period, he lost everything and then he died. For years, I tried to help my brother. It mattered so much to me that he was safe. First, I wanted him to be a good husband to his wife and a good father to his three children. When his marriage ended, I focused on getting him to a place of mental and financial stability.

Once, I stayed up all night by his bedside in an emergency room when I was seven months pregnant. Another time, I brought my second child, then 2, into a large hospital, searching from open curtained bed to open curtained bed to find my brother. I would later learn that it was a ward for patients with multiple complicating issues like my brother who was battling addiction, mental illness and a traumatic brain injury from his most recent overdose. It wasn’t a pleasant place. There were people who didn’t blink or swallow as they stared at us with a machine shoved down their throat. They lay on the beds without moving, as if the undertaker had forgotten to get them dressed for their own service.

Full Story @NYTimes