A Personal Essay*

By Jan Yager

*Copyright by Jan Yager, Ph.D. 1998 Originally published in Survivors, 1988. Reprinted in A Private Sociology, edited by Dr. Art Shostak (General Hall, Inc., 1997). This essay is posted for educational purposes only. It may not be reproduced or reprinted without permission of the copyright holder, Dr. Jan Yager, URL: www.JanYager.com/writing

      There are very few thoughts that consistently bring tears to my eyes. Thinking of how much I miss my brother is one such thought. It's a loss that makes those silly slogans -"Time heals all wounds" and "Everything happens for the best" -- infuriating to me. Time hasn't healed the wound. His death didn't happen because it was "best". It just happened. Seth was a struggling freelance writer when he died, the victim of one of those senseless street muggings you might read about somewhere in just a few lines in the city newspaper. (A couple of teenage gang members tried to rob him, overpowering him as they thrust a knife into his back and side, then mercilessly twisting it, causing fatal damage to his liver.) I never had a chance to talk to Seth after the attack; by the time I got to the hospital, he had lost consciousness. After three days of operations, blood transfusions, and valiant efforts by the doctors and nurses, Seth died from his wounds.

      My brother was twenty-three when he died, and I was twenty. Soon my brother will be gone as many years as we shared. I am indeed fortunate to still have a sister, since I shudder to think about what life would be like without any sibling at all. But one relationship does not replace another. One gain does not cancel out one loss.

      I thought of my brother more in the last year than I had allowed myself to think of him for quite a while because my nephew Sky, the son born two months after my brother’s death, the son Seth never lived to see, graduated from high school. My family was there to share the event. But it would be hard for my nephew, who physically resembles my brother, but who never knew his father, to have his mannerisms, personality, or even any concrete thoughts of him. Once I visited my nephew Sky on a schoolday during his last year of junior high school. My nephew had arranged a marriage of two dolls as a fundraiser for a needy family who took in foster children. I attended that ceremony, and saw how much affection and respect my nephew had from his peers, one of my rare glimpses into Sky's character that so reminded me of my late brother.

     My sister-in-law has done a fine job raising my nephew, and, as much as possible, includes my family in holidays and even spontaneous get-togethers. I sincerely consider her more like a friend than a "former" in-law. But it's difficult on her current life and relationships when the parental blood tie with a nephew has officially ended or changed, whether by death or by divorce, for I often feel like an intruder on her family, and awkward about what role I should play.

     My sister and I occasionally wonder what our older brother Seth would have been like if he had lived. Would Seth have continued writing, and made it big, or would he have gone into teaching, as he had talked about doing right before he died? Or perhaps he would have become a filmmaker or a politician? But alas, death has frozen him at that earlier point in his life and I am unable to fill in his looks "as if" the way they do each year on the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's death. (This is the way Kennedy might have looked if he were still alive ... or Marilyn Monroe, etc.)

      I have found, for me, the best way to keep my brother's life meaningful in the present is to try to focus on those extraordinary qualities that he had, and, if I can, to incorporate them into my own personality. For example, although I am somewhat shy, my brother was a networker before the word was even popular, since he loved people, and parties, and going to lots of extraordinary events and happenings. I remember when I was in my late teens and he invited me along to a poetry reading in New York’s Greenwich Village given by a man to celebrate his 100th birthday. How did Seth find out about that party? How did he feel comfortable walking into that room of strangers, greeting the old man and his wife of 70± years, as if he had known them for decades? Where did Seth find out about all the wonderful happenings in New York that he shared with others, informally or through Slightseeing, the column he wrote in the New York University student newspaper?

      My brother spent most of his time communicating with others--which is how he learned about all that was going on. Of course he read magazines and newspapers, but he involved himself with others, and they repaid him by letting him know about their celebrations, openings, screenings, and happenings. I have become more like that over these years, learning to pick up the phone, or go talk to someone in person, rather than remaining aloof, hiding behind a paint brush or a pen.

      Seth also had a way of letting you know how much he approved of you. His verbal and written praise inspired even more efforts. If he liked one of my paintings, he expressed himself in a way that made me feel as if I just had a major retrospective of my work reviewed in The New York Times. I try to emulate his positive example, and to articulate my praise of the work of those I care about, even if my initial impulse is to be either a little envious, or somewhat blase.

      Certainly my brother, like all of us, had his faults, but his special caring, wonderful qualities were dominant. As one of his professors said to me, "A lot of students say they're going to change the world. But I knew your brother was going to." That indeed is another aspect of the death of a family member that I rarely hear expressed, namely, the loss of the network they developed, the end of those friendships and relationships. True, for a while there may be ripples of those intimate or professional relationships. My cousin tells me that there was a catered party organized by the friend of her friend--my acquaintance--who recently died of breast cancer at the age of thirty-seven. That was a nice tribute, but all those separate lives were once linked together by the young woman who is gone. The chain is broken, and her family is separated from those associations. Thus you lose on so many levels when someone so close to you dies.

     I think of how rich my sibling made my life perhaps because I wonder if I have the patience and strength to have another child--when taking care of each one is so demanding. But what would my childhood have been like without my brother or even my sister to share it with?

     The emptiness that followed the loss of my brother is important to feel and not deny. The pain I feel makes my life richer, not poorer, for it reminds me everyday how sacred are the moments we are blessed to spend with those we love. How irreplaceable we all are--not to our casual contacts, but to those few who truly know, appreciate, and love us. No, time has not healed my wound. It is remembering that helps…. a little.