Holding my brother's hand

His hand was soft. It was not the working man's hands that I knew. Not that we held
hands much as adults. The hand I held now was soft, puffy and weak, but his hand
was most certainly holding my own back. I could feel him do it. I could see in his
face, his smile, and what was left of his gaze, that he knew I was there and he held
my hand back. He squeezed my hand with no strength. He looked at me without
that penetrating, mischievous gaze that so defined him. He seemed to be looking
out into space and only half here with us.
He lay there curled up, almost fetal. He would have curled up like a baby, but they
did not let him put the bed down. They did not let him avoid his pills.
I sat there as nurse, therapist and daughter came and went, patiently holding that
hand and spoke with him as much as he could.
My mind drifted back fifty years. He was in first and second grade. I was four years
ahead of him. For those two years I walked him to our suburban school. I would
hold his hand, especially to cross the street. He would torture me as only a little
brother can. Once he threw his lunch money down a drain because he knew I would
have to replace it from my own or catch hell from our mom.
I was responsible. He knew that meant I was trapped.
Holding his hand is what brought my mind back to those days. Those days when
being four years older mattered and I had to help take care of my little brother. I held
him close. Got him to school. Made sure he was safe and would eat that lunch. He
was the first child I ever loved and cared for, back when I was a child myself.
Caring for him had been a constant in my childhood. Getting his bike back after
some kid tricked him into trading it for some small toy. Getting the bigger kids to
leave the smaller kids alone at the circle at the end of our dead end residential culde-saq. Getting us out of the room when the sparks flew and kids were best off in
another room with a TV on. A TV I did not watch much. Id lead him away by the
hand.
We talked of running away as we did our chores behind the garbage gate. Some
day. Maybe when we were older. Older was maybe 12 and 8. I always wondered
why we did not do it.
Of course I know why. I was no longer there when I was 12 and he was 8. I had

already been sent away. The boarding school was how the problem of me was
"dealt with". As powerless as that left me, there was always a thought that he and I
should have run away. It still feels like a broken promise. It feels like I let go of his
hand when I shouldnt have.
I always felt I should have taken better care of him.
We had planned to run away together.
With hindsight, it was a reasonable idea.
I ran away alone. I was 14, he was 10, she was 8.
Then he was stolen. I turned up and was hidden with him. But I was now too big to
stay where stolen kids had been hidden away. That time, I took him with me back to
where the parent doing the taking was putting it to the parent who was having the
children taken.
It did not work.
The stolen children stayed stolen.
I was no longer called a child.
So I was driven to the edge of town to continue hitch hiking on my way.
I was 14 and he was 10 and she was 8.
And I wanted to hold their hands.
When they were stolen back I was not told.
It was time for me to give up.
Having run away once, I now needed to leave again and stay gone this time.
It felt like abandoning them.
I wanted to hold their hands, and had no idea how to do it.
And time rolled along.
Each time was different, far apart.
We loved each other, but did not hold hands.
Except for the time I pulled him from behind the wheel, too drunk to stand.
I almost missed it. My girlfriend warned me, we acted.
One of his friends called me a good brother the next day.
Good enough?
His hand needed to be pulled, but it was my girlfriend who noticed.
When the parent who once stole him, would not allow him to come to stay.

My shoulder was there.

But not my hand; I had no other option to offer.
He held himself together with his own hands.
First he rescued himself, then he held up others with those hands.
And became a man I did not worry about.
He led, others followed.
At times it was me having my hand held.
We leant each other those hands over the years.
Raising our children.
Dealing with our divorces.
Burying our dead.
Keeping our secrets.
And we held close in the good times. The visits. Even the last visit right after the
diagnosis. He was brave about the chemo, the radiation, the other things that would
follow and the chances that he had to give an honest try. We both knew that the
back yard pool gathering with the messy food, wet grandchildren, and all the friends
and family was where he was at his most happy. And we both knew that it may
become the last time. It became my last time to see all of him still there.
His brother was there for him, hand and all. At least that time.
From the day of my first sons birth I would mistakenly call my son by my brother's
name. Caring for my children always made me feel the memory of the time I cared
for my brother. That is not a memory I remember without feeling it. Memory of
caring for my brother as a little boy brought the better side of me out. I needed some
of those memories to be a good father. As he was a good father himself. We had
each other's back in that and most things.
Always knowing that if needed, we could have that hand.
I told him about holding his hand to walk him to school.
He sort of remembered, but really remembered a school he went to after I was gone.
Even without the cancer he was not going to remember the second grade.
I helped him keep on the beanie that kept his chemotherapy bald head warm and his
brain surgery scars hidden.
They needed to stay hidden.

I hope he knew I was there.

Maybe he knew that my two sons were there as well.
The one that looks like him.
And the one I used to call by his name.
He knew our names and spoke them to us.
So even if he no longer remembers, he knew we were there with him, for a moment.
Maybe he remembers me holding that hand.
We had come for him.
We were there with his wife and daughter and our sister.
Maybe we were of some use to his limitless friends and family.
We had done what we needed to do for ourselves.
We came to see him, however bad that looked.
I saw him and knew that there were no choices left.
When my sister in law called she had made her decision.
My last bit of hand holding was to provide some reassurance.
So, may it be in peace, at your home, with your family, next to your fire.
As I find a way to let your hand go.