My brother died. It will be six years on May 16. It was three days after his birthday. His name is Lee. His death was one of my biggest heartbreaks in life. It left me weary to say the least. I had been through many trials for several years prior to his death. The punches just kept coming one after another. I seemed to not be able to recover before I got hit again. After his death, I was so worn down, I just felt soulbroken.
My brother had been sick for about four years before he passed on. He had diabetes. Lee’s toes would turn black with gangrene and he’d have to have them removed. The doctor would say, “Oh it’s diabete,” telling him that it was caused by poor circulation and nerve damage. He would tell him to watch what he ate, lose weight and it would be less likely to occur.
My brother went into the hospital to have one of his toes removed. While there, the doctor discovered that my brother had cancer. It was in his bones. Thus, being the reason he was getting gangrene in his toes, not diabetes. He had lymphoma and it had spread from his white blood cells to his lymph nodes, spleen and into his bone marrow. I was so angry, beyond angry, I was infuriated! I am to this day angry with that doctor. Why didn’t they check my brother for cancer? Lee had all the symptoms of cancer. Why didn’t his doctor check for cancer? Lymphoma is considered a very treatable cancer. His doctor, like so many other doctors, just decided that his health issues were caused by diabetes and did not consider the possibility that his ill health could have been caused by something else. The cancer was just let go to run its destructive course until it was too late to be treated. Cancer runs in our family. My brother was only 48.
From my personal experiences and the experiences of a lot of people I know, doctors want to blame everything either on diabetes or on depression. they never consider anything else if you’ve got depression or diabetes. Thus, leading to misdiagnosis due to their assumptions.
Lee developed an infection from his surgery and his kidneys shut down. The doctors’ did dialysis to get his kidneys working again and we’re planning to start treatment for cancer afterward, but he developed a fever. Lee lived for two weeks after the diagnosis. During those two weeks, I would go to the hospital and I would see him. I would try to make it there everyday, but I could not always. I would read to him the Bible. I would read Job and Mathew and Psalms 23, 34 and 116.There were some other one’s too, but those are the one’s I remember.
My brother didn’t talk much during those last days, but he listened. I would talk to him, and try so hard not to cry because I didn’t want to make him sad. He was very sedated, but he could hear everything and knew exactly what was going on around him.
I was talking to him one day shortly after we had learned about the cancer. I told him he was going to have to hurry up and get well cuz it was warm and the world was beautiful with the flowers in bloom. I told him we all needed to get together and have a cookout to celebrate his birthday even though it would be after his birthday. He told me he won’t be there for those cookouts. He said to me,”I’m going home, home, home.” I’ll never forget that moment. My heart broke. I spent a lot of years as a caregiver and I know people know when their time has come. He knew it was his time. When Lee said he was “Going home, home, home”, he spoke those words with the most confidence and most joy that you could ever imagine. Lee knew where he was going! He had so much faith in God and Heaven. I have never known anyone else to have such faith. It was beautiful to see. It was one of the most beautiful spiritual moments I have ever witnessed.
I remember the night Lee died. I stayed with him until about 3:00 in the morning. The nurse came in to do his vitals. She asked me if I would like a cup of coffee. As soon as she asked that, my brother spoke up and he said I’d like a cup! He loved coffee. It was his favorite drink. Of course, they wouldn’t let him have that cup of coffee and as much as I love coffee, I had to turn it down. I didn’t have the heart to drink it in the same room where he laid knowing he could smell it. I hope to never forget that memory.
My dad called me about 8:00 in the morning and told me that my brother passed on. Lee died around 5:00. He spiked a temperature of 105 causing irreversible brain damage. They kept him on life support until we all got there to say goodbye.
I held my brother’s left hand while my sister-in-law had his right. My daughter stood at his feet and my dad was at his right side. My niece, his child, was not there. She was in Afghanistan. She was able to come home to visit him before he died but she had to go back before he passed on. We prayed over my brother. Afterward, a nurse turned off the ventilator. I remember the nurse turning off the machine. I listened as my brother took his last breaths and I watched as the monitor flat lined showing no more signs of life. As Lee took his final breaths, my dad began to cry. He was in a wheelchair and he started quickly backing his way out of the room pushing aside those who stood behind him saying he couldn’t watch it.
I did not stay long after he was gone. I said goodbye to my daughter and my dad and I left. I just could not be there. My heart was broken and I was angry. My stepmother carried on the entire time while we waited for others to arrive and just kept repeating to my dad that he could replace my brother, his son with her grandson and her grandson could be his child. Oh my God! I was so angry, like you can replace your child with someone else. There is no replacing a child that has passed on. I can’t even begin to believe that that woman could honestly think in her head and in her heart that a parent can just replace a child. Even after my brother was gone, she kept telling my dad my brother was replaceable.
My church was still in service when I got back to town. Services were half over, but I just had to be near God. After services everyone would tell me they were sorry, that it’s going to be okay, he’s in heaven and all that. I thanked them for their kind words. But what I needed was to know why? Why did God take my brother? Why did he let this happen? I just couldn’t make sense of it.
I went home afterward. I do not remember how I spent the afternoon, but when I went to bed that evening I dreamed I was laying on a mattress. My brother was one side of me, we were laying there together in a room. there was nothing in it but that mattress. The walls were an ugly institutionalized green or blue. There was a doorway with no door. I was looking out into the hall and Jesus passed by that door. I could feel the pain of his death as I dreamed. As Jesus walked by, I asked him, “Why?”, and he turned to me and he said, “To teach you perseverance and endurance”, then he just walked away and I woke up.
The cruelty and selfishness that is bestowed upon people during times of grief is unreal. After his death, my dad had to pay to have my brother’s body stored for almost 2 weeks because my niece’s sergeant gave her such a hard time about coming home to Lee’s funeral. It shows you how much the devil rules our world and gets into people. My stepmother continued going on at my brother’s funeral about how my brother could be replaced with her grandson. To this day, I still hold resentment against that woman for saying that nonsense. It just hurt me so deeply. I guess I should let it go because it really just shows her level of emotional maturity and surely her ignorance hurts her more than me.
My brother had one of the largest funerals I had ever seen in my life. There were hundreds of people at his funeral. His funeral was held at one of the largest churches in our area and people had to stand in the lobby because there was no room inside of the church sanctuary. It did my heart good to see how much my brother was loved and by so many.
I was really angry with God for taking my brother. I felt like he had stolen my brother from me. I felt like he had killed my brother. They say that God has the power to work any miracle, but he didn’t work that miracle. It took a year and a half for me to forgive God. I didn’t turn my back on God though. I didn’t stop praying or talking to God, but I sent up some very angry prayers. It was a wonder God didn’t strike me with a bolt of lightning and send me straight to hell! We have a very forgiving God. My heart softened in time and I asked God for forgiveness and help to accept my brother’s death. I have accepted it, I have no choice, but I still grieve him. It was like losing part of myself when he passed on.
I know where my brother is and I know he is at peace. Lee is at peace and in joy like none of us experience here on this Earth. I would not want any less for him. I know someday God will call me home too, then I will be reunited with my brother and the part of me that I lost when I lost him.