It's a symptom of how convoluted the whole relationship had become that I have to pause before beginning this to decide between "my brother" or "my step-brother." For years, I simply skipped the "step" part of those relationships. It seemed to me after 20, 30, and now 40 years, how it all began should be irrelevant but things were said and done that made me realize perhaps not all of us felt the same way. Still, for me, he was my brother, and that didn't change even when we weren't talking, or now that he's gone.
The first time I met Brent I was 9 and he was 7. His dad was dating my mom and they sent him out into our backyard without introduction to "play with the kids." He was a chubby little kid with big ears, and I was the pack leader. I asked him what his name was and I remember being genuinely perplexed because I'd never heard the name "Brent" before. He was a farm kid and we lived in town and when it was time for them to leave, he said they had to go home to "do chores." To me, "chores" was a descriptor, followed by a list of specific duties. For him, chores were chores, and he couldn't figure out why I was asking him what chores he had to do.
Eventually our parents married, and the blending of our families was nothing Brady Bunch-like in the least. We were 4 kids who had started off life with 1 sibling, now expected to establish our places with 2 more. At the time, our age differences seemed more pronounced because we were spread out over several school grades. In reality, our birthdays all fell within about 2 years. My mom bought everything for the boys in 3s: a stack of jeans on the counter at Sears, 3 softball uniforms in different sizes. They even had their own color socks. When Steven left for college, he asked my mom to please buy him a different color because he had finally had enough of always wearing dark green.
(I spent most of today sorting through old photos, but the one I wanted I still can't find: All 3 of my brothers lined up in their softball uniforms, all with the same buzzed-off-by-my-dad haircuts. I love that photo. Now only Mark is left.)
I hope it's a sign of some sort of emotional balance that most of my memories of the past are happy ones. I know it wasn't all that way but growing up on a farm was a lot of fun. What Brent always remembered was how well we ate, and we did. Dinner was at 6 pm every night and everyone sat together at the dinner table. We had a freezer full of meat, freshly frozen or canned vegetables we grew in our own garden (and how I hated all the work that involved, shelling peas or snapping beans! Now I realize how much work my mom and dad did to keep us fed like that. Our part was nothing.) We had to mow an acre of lawn and did so based on a rotating schedule, everyone's weekly sessions posted on the bulletin board in the kitchen. We all did dishes the same way, one turn after the other, but the actual farm chores were left to the boys. We had 4-H projects and built forts in the hay mow when it was filled with straw in June, rooms connected by tunnels. There was a hole in the floor where you'd drop the straw down to bed the pigs and we'd jump through and land in the pile of loose straw, then climb the ladder and do it again.
(It took me forever to actually jump. If I thought about it at all, I'd imagine hitting the other side and freeze in one place. My brothers and the neighbor kids would race by me again and again while I sat there working up to it.)
I left home to go to college when I was 18 and Brent left not too long after that too. I think he was 16. I bet if he were a kid now, they'd find out he had learning disabilities or ADD but back then he was a "bad" kid who should try harder or whatever they came up with to put their own inabilities to understand him back on him. He spent a lot of years getting in trouble, years I was getting into similiar trouble in my own way, but not getting caught at it as much as he did.
I moved out here when I was 30, a bit closer to where he lived, and for quite a few years we were good friends. I took him in for a few days when he got beat half to death, and then lent him my blender so he could eat through his broken jaw. I went to his softball games and met his friends. No point in skipping the facts: we smoked a lot of pot together. I about bet he never stopped, too. I tend to think there are worst things someone can do than that. As time went by, he settled down and became mostly a homebody. He met his wife about the same time I met my husband, and they married a year after we did. We had our first big falling-out a few years later and barely talked for a few years, until he showed up here to tell me they were getting a divorce, about a year after mine. We became friends again. I loved going out to his place, on the land where we grew up. At night in summer, there are more stars and fireflies than you can imagine, so many that the concept of "infinite" becomes real. Still, there were grudges and issues and eventually it all fell apart again. I can understand the reasons why but I couldn't find a way to fix them.
We were still hanging out when he first got sick, about 2 years ago. His back hurt he said, so he saw a chiropracter and soaked in the bathtub. I was trying to back away from the bossy, know-it-all big sister but insisted he see a doctor. I was afraid it was his heart. I guess it took him about 6 months of worsening pain before he finally did. His heart was in great shape. He had lung cancer instead. About 6 months after that he woke up and couldn't see out of one eye and found out then it had already spread to his brain.
Since then, I saw him once and talked to him perhaps a dozen times. Our only visit was nice, went well, but he made it clear he didn't want or need me in his life anymore. Perhaps I should have pushed it. Perhaps I took the cowardly way out, avoided what was coming by telling myself I wasn't going to push my way into a dying man's life against his wishes. He had his friends, good friends, people who went out of their way to be there for him. And his way of dealing with it all was to not deal with it. He claimed he didn't think about dying much, when it's your time, it's your time. And having me around, unable to forget what was going on, was more reminder than he wanted. Still, when you're not talking to someone you know is going to die, you have to accept that one day there won't be another chance. And that day was yesterday.
He was still at home, still continuing treatments. Not well but not dying exactly yet either. They believe he had a stroke or a heart attack, which I suppose was a blessing for him in a way. The lingering last weeks of a death by cancer aren't pretty for anyone and he sidestepped that somehow. In keeping with a family tradition of dying on other people's important days (My brother Steven died a day after my dad's birthday and 2 days after my Grandma's. My dad died on my birthday. My stepdad died on my mom's birthday), he died on my nephew's wedding day.
One thing I always told him, and it's true, is that in spite of his faults and his mistakes, he was a good guy. He was always honest, always cared about other people. He was a great dad to his daughter, who is 12 now. The saddest thing I heard in all of this is she chopped her hair off because she wanted to be bald like her dad...I can't imagine the hole that's been torn in her life. He worked hard and had a lot of good friends. He didn't demand a lot out of life. He was happy keeping his house clean and swimming in his pool. He should have had a lot more time than he was given. RIP, Brent. I'll miss you.
