A Day of Remembrance by Ilona Wewiorska
He was sitting in an armchair near the window in a vanquished pose. The paramedics had placed a blanket over his face. I approached him with a reverence I had failed to accord him in life. Having lost so many family members over the years I thought I would have been ready for the death of my elder brother, especially as he had been ill for some time, but when I received the phone call at work I had been stunned and filled with wild panic.
He had been staying over at a friend’s flat when the end came. I had to ask for the address of the flat to be repeated several times over the phone but still had difficulty absorbing the details so had set out there with only a partial notion of the floor and house number. My younger brother, now my only sibling and last member of my original family, had been waiting for me in the rain soaked car park at the foot of the tall building and we had proceeded together to make our way up.
The policemen were young, respectful and sympathetic in manner; the friend nervously exuding courtesy and exactness in the recounting of what had happened. The doctor had already been and gone. Soon I and my sibling were left alone.
It took a while before I lifted the blanket from my brother’s face as doing so would confirm that he truly had gone. He looked just as he did when he used to fall asleep on a chair in my house, except that now the tip of his tongue protruded from his full lips and once beautiful teeth. With some shame I placed the blanket back. His worn and unlaced shoes were by his over-sized feet. I carefully raised one of his trouser legs and was shocked to see the extent of the swelling and bruising of his pallid skin. His arms hung helpless over the sides of the armchair. I became aware of his hands and for the first time noticed how lovely they were. I placed my right hand in his left as I had not done since we were children. At that moment the undertakers crashed into the quiet and automatically took charge. We were told to go into the kitchen please: my sibling, the friend who had returned and I, and we did as we were told. In the kitchen we stood lonely and useless as we heard the sounds of my brother’s body being removed. In my hands I held his entire worldly goods: a pair of glasses, some used cinema tickets and a set of house keys.
The lock on his front door was old and stiff and it took a lot of manipulation to turn it and strength to push the door open. I had mentally prepared myself for the condition of the house, the house I had not been in for twenty years, the family home, where my brother had become a recluse, having developed an extreme form of obsessive compulsive disorder.
It was worse than I expected. Most of the floor space was taken up with all that he had hoarded, including bags of household rubbish which illogically had the same value for him as bags of family treasures, and I realised why he had chosen to spend so much time away, pounding the streets or staying with friends who were willing to give him refuge.
As I lay in my comfortable bed that night, unable to sleep, I remembered the night my mother died. I had been living abroad at the time. Having been told the news I was sitting in my neighbour’s living room while she was phoning in her hall, trying to contact my husband, and I had been suddenly filled with an overpowering sense of my mother’s presence outside in the front garden in the dark, waiting for me to come out, but I was petrified and could not bring myself even to pull the curtain back to glimpse her, en route to eternity. Now, I was determined not to miss such an unrepeatable opportunity again and so kept getting up to look out of my bedroom window unafraid, searching for my brother, willing him to appear to me, longing to rush out to him, but the street was empty. It was too late.
I eventually gave up and tortured myself with mistakes and memories and agonised over feelings of guilt and regret. But of all the emotions that rent me the greatest was an overwhelming sadness for the existence my brother had endured.
What lessons would I learn from this tragedy? Would I seize each day and live every moment to the full? Would I pursue burning ambitions at last, with no more wretched, paltry excuses for delay? Would I carry the banner of my brother’s life: of goodness, friendship, compassion and forgiveness? Would I remember not to forget the living? Would I and my younger, last sibling overcome our petty squabbles and meet up more, so that on that imminent, unsuspecting day when only one of us is left we would be prepared, with no remorse, and be sustained in grief by recollections of happiness and love? Would I treat my husband and children with devotion every hour and always leave them on the best of terms? I feared not.
With my head on the pillow and eyes closed I re-enacted holding my brother’s limp hand as I had done earlier that afternoon. It was such a kind hand. My eyes began to sting as I ached with yearning for him, for our unique relationship, for our past, our youthful plans, our never to be realised future.
That day was bleak, as was the night and the prospect of so many unrelenting tomorrows. For me, not only to keep on going but to do so as my brother would have wanted, with optimism and heart, will take time and courage. I hope I have both.
