Purity

My dad had surgery today. It didn't go quite as expected, but everything is ok. In the Ambulatory Surgery Center the prep/recovery rooms each have a framed photo on a wall - always a flower but each room's flower has a different word ... "love," "gratitude," "sharing." The flower in my dad's recovery room said "Purity."

I watched him sleeping ... looking so peaceful ... and was touched by the way his face would light up and a smile would appear if I so much as touched his forehead or squeezed his shoulder. Even drugged and mostly asleep he knew his baby girl was with him.

I had never noticed before how much my father and my no-longer-with-us brother, Kelly, looked alike. It was shocking, actually. Kelly's been on my mind a lot lately, for a lot of reasons, and for long surreal minutes in recovery I was drifting between comforting my dad and comforting my brother. Surreal, to be sure, but also cathartic.

Kelly died alone. I had chosen years before to cut off contact with him. As time passed and word got to me of his illnesses as well as his troubles, I started feeling guilty. I'd help a stranger on the street but had turned my back on my brother. He was sick, weak, living in public housing in North Carolina and Christmas was approaching. I was thinking of him one night and felt the hand of God on my heart and felt moved to reach out.

I went Christmas shopping for my brother. I hadn't seen him in years, hadn't welcomed communication from him in years, but I remembered what he liked. I bought him a Summer Sausage (boy, we both used to love those), a jar of mustard, a carton of cigarettes, some stamps and envelopes and paper, and I packed it all up and included a card. I couldn't break down all my walls at once and was hesitant to face being rebuked, so the card simply said "I'm here. Merry Christmas."

A couple weeks later, shortly after Christmas, my brother's body was found on the couch in his apartment. My other brother, Lewis, had been keeping in touch with Kelly and trying to help and was contacted by the apartment management. Lewis went up to NC to take care of things and talked to people who lived around Kelly, his friends, and they said he'd been happy recently. He'd gone all over the complex telling people he'd gotten a Christmas present from his baby sister. He was proud and happy - I'd remembered what he liked. It had taken so little to brighten his life. And I cried and cried and cried and still cry.

So I'm in the recovery room, comforting my father and he gets an expression that looks just like Kelly. Just like Kelly. And he's sleeping but he's smiling because I'm there. I start to cry silently and this time it isn't the hand of God I feel on my heart. It's the hand of my brother, comforting me.

Too little too late, but ... I'm so sorry. And I do feel you with me. And I love you.