From The Heart: My Brother

This is one of the most moving and honest ‘From the Heart’ features we have ever published, and I am truly humbled that it’s author has asked me to share. I just wanted to warn you in advance that this is a heart-rending feature which you may find upsetting. I am honoured to share ‘My Brother’ with you today, and send all of my love and warm hugs to the individual who took the time to open her heart and write this piece. 

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You see words, and lots of them. Yet before these words were on this page it was entirely blank – white and glaring and unforgiving – and I stared at it for quite some time that way. You know those topics you avoid writing? The stories that simmer and bubble just beneath the surface and you have no real clue where to start, or even, what to say. This is one of those. The hardest topic of my life.

I’ve still kept a sentiment of it about weddings. In part, because you’re a bevy of beautiful wedding blog readers but for the most, because it’s inevitable that a wedding, which by nature so closely entwines itself around the roots of a family, should bring out these topics and thus, emotions.

Anyone who has, or is in the process of, planning a wedding knows so completely about the drama of the guest-list. The plus one who sidled up on an RSVP uninvited; the distant cousin whose both rather grumpy and rather vocal at their 5 children being missed off the invite list; your parents’ family friend you met when you were 2 and have utterly no awareness of, but who absolutely must be invited. They’re familiar tales. And don’t get me started on the politics of a seating plan!

What seems a little less usual are the times you have to decide, intentionally, to not invite your very closest family to your very biggest moment. For me, my brother. In fact, we couldn’t even tell him the date.

First allow me to take you back in time a little. There aren’t enough permitted pages on this blank screen of mine to divulge the whole colourful history but I can provide a snap-shot: a context. My brother was 3 years older than me. As a child he was a protective, loving, and devoted older brother. He was also, I hasten to add, a total pain: he deliberately got me in trouble any moment he could and was a relentless tease.

Put simply, he was as all older brothers should be: irritating yet endlessly caring. Our relationship was exactly that when we were younger and boringly normal in almost all aspects that come to be expected from a middle-working class family.

The difficulties started when I was aged around 12 and he 15. School-life GCSE pressure, peer pressure and the wrong crowd, all began to infiltrate. At first I was rather sheltered from it all and saw only what I might be permitted to: arguments, ‘teenage behaviour’, and less family time became normal. However, as my brother began sinking into alcohol and, at that time, soft drugs, slowly yet progressively these difficulties picked up pace.

For my first job, at the age of 14, I got paid £2.20 per hour to wash-up at a local pizzeria and I squirreled this money away. Some months after, my brother stole my bank card and emptied my account of my first £100: and so began the locked bedroom doors, the safe we had to keep all the valuables in, and the horrid selfishness of addiction. His behaviour at this time was nothing short of horrendous. He was bitter, full of anger, resentful and aggressive.

We suffered ongoing, near constant abuse: emotional, psychological and physical. He could get various jobs through his charm but he could never keep them and more often than not, my parents, having kitted out his various flats, would be chased by his debt collectors, back-paying his rent, and he’d be home again. At his age 20 my parents bought him a puppy, the sweetly named Boris the Golden Cocker Spaniel, in the vein hope it may trigger in him a sense of responsibility. It didn’t, and Boris instead became another instrument to neglect and bully.

When he was 21, and by this time regularly indulging in all manner of alcohol and class A substances, he began to abuse Boris in the kitchen with Mum and I. At our interjection, we were yelled at, thrown against walls and threatened with a knife. It was my job that night to call the police and get-everyone out as quickly as possible. The police had by this time become something of a regular occurrence. Owing to his unsafe inebriation that night he was taken to hospital where he managed to abscond, get a taxi back home, and proceeded to physically beat my dad in the garden to near unconsciousness, helplessly in view of us, until the police, once again, arrived. The effects on us all were profound and I found myself with severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I couldn’t speak, sleep, think and had developed a twitch so severe that almost all my back muscles stuck out in lumps from knotting. I took my A-Level January exams 5 days after on a high dose of Diazepam and to this day, my proudest achievement is a mediocre C in Biology from an exam I can barely remember taking and tolerated sitting through only through half of.

Charges this time were brought but my parents, in their desperation not to see their son go to Prison, offered the judge a plea bargain: his release to instead attend rehab. It was granted, and at my parents’ debt, he was flown to South Africa for what totalled 5 months. South Africa was wonderful. It gave us respite and healing and it taught my brother to reconnect with compassion for others, accept responsibility and reduce blame. What it didn’t do, it became apparent after 6 months back home, was stop the addiction. Again, the spiral began.

At almost 23, and high on alcohol and crystal meth, my brother stabbed my dad 8 times with a screwdriver. The crystal meth, which ironically made him pass out before he ‘finished the job’, meant my Dad rang the ambulance and police. My Dad survived, and this time my brother was convicted for 5 years of wounding with intent. He was released after 2 and a half, but after 6 months, relapsed on Heroin, confessed to feeling a danger to himself and others, and so was re-institutionalised for the final 2 years. Throughout the duration of his sentence we all so regularly visited and wrote. I feel compelled to say this wasn’t because of our profound saintly nature, but because in total honesty, when he was without influence he was the most loving and wonderful person, and by now full of gratitude. That night he attacked us all before rehab? It was only 4 weeks after I’d had flu and he’d sat with me near constantly for 2 weeks through my fevers. It’s hard to describe but it wasn’t ‘him’ that hurt himself and us – it was the ‘addiction’.

The last 4 years were the best. He struggled recurrently with relapses, depression, OCD and his other mental health problems which by now were a consensus of personality disorder, but he kept his own housing association flat and lived independently. When he was well, he went to meetings, volunteered and could never do enough for others. My Mum’s work colleague gave him some furniture and he never forgot it.

When he heard that one Christmas she’d had trouble with her kitchen and gas, he insisted on going to see her and he gave her his ‘Christmas Hamper’ that he’d been given from the foodbank. Despite all his flaws, he still gave to others the very, very, little that he had and he was very loved for it. These years though, saw his relapses take him through respiratory arrest twice, cardiac arrest and a mini-stroke. His body, after almost 18 years of addiction was beginning to protest.

When I got engaged in December 2014, we told him of course, and he was delighted. But the idea of inviting him to a celebration involving so much alcohol and such a volatile character made me so anxious, let alone the logistics of how to get him there. It was an issue I couldn’t face and I decided that if by 1 year to go, he had been sober for a period of time (there were often periods), that I would have to invite him. May and the one-year mark came and went and I still ignore it whilst he continued with intermittent periods of sobriety and addiction.

Given the turbulence, I decided at this point not to invite him to the wedding. I couldn’t see how it would be possible to enjoy our day without worry, in an environment with so many challenges, and I felt, however selfishly, that we had earnt this day. That my parents and I had earnt this day and we absolutely must enjoy it. My husband-to-be summed it up perfectly when he said: “I know that he doesn’t mean to do it, but these are his problems they are not ours”.

He was harsh but correct. We didn’t, any of us, ask for this situation and we could, in this instance, mitigate against it. Despite my certainty I still couldn’t say it and I copped out of a face:face or phone, instead opting for a written letter. On receiving it, he was quiet for a few days but called me after and was surprisingly accepting. In some ways he was relieved that he wouldn’t have to try and manage a situation he knew he would find unmanageable – and for him, saying no to our invite and letting us down was far worse than not being invited. We also agreed that, given his tendency to unintentionally have the biggest crisis at the biggest times (birthdays, fathers’ days, Christmas, during holidays) we couldn’t even tell him the date – everything had to be kept completely secret. Without a doubt, deciding not to have my only brother at my wedding was the hardest decision I had to make but in the end, our day was care free and wonderful.

At the end of June I was told that he was on intensive care. Having taken heroin with his friend, his friend had accidentally over-dosed. The dealer fled as my brother called the police and ambulance, and tried unsuccessfully to revive him. He was unable to, and he died. At that moment my brother had snuck away, distraught, and took a deliberate over-dose. He was found in cardiac arrest by the ambulance men at the flat, revived and saved on ITU. From this point he became adamant of wanting help and rehabilitation and sought to get it.

Those perceptive ones amongst you will note that despite this, I’ve written about him in past tense. On the 20^th August this year we were told that he had died of an accidental heroin over-dose. In the twist of cruel irony which so frequently kills so many, he had been sober for a few months and waiting for rehab. This time, of his own volition. The day before he was due to attend rehab, he become fearful, and took his usual dose of heroin as a final fling. Yet, due to his period of abstinence, the usual amount was now too toxic and it killed him. Had he continued using up to that point, he would still be alive today.

Those who know someone with an addiction (and there are so, so many!) will know that it is a near constant stream of guilt, anxiety and uncertainty. The death of an addict brings this about 10-fold and for me, in a culminating wall of 18-years of guilt. I was guilty for the fact that as children he saw that I was always ‘better than him’ so he gave up trying, yet I saw that I had to be better to make up for the both of us: we kept a vicious cycle going and we never even knew it.

I was guilty for not trying hard enough, not being patient enough, not understanding enough. Guilty for moving away, being more distant, fulfilling my life. Guilty for not replying to his last message, not calling often enough, or trying hard enough, or seeing him enough. Guilty for not managing to ‘fix’ him. The whole thing just made me feel consumed by: Sorry. Yet I was not guilty nor sorry for not inviting him to the wedding. It might seem crazy that now, of all times, you’d wish you could find him on your wedding photos, but I don’t. We both knew that however cruel of selfish it seemed it was the right decision.

I look back on my day and feel his presence but not the resentment I’d likely have felt had he been there – and there is an important distinction in that.

A wedding isn’t ‘all about the two of you’ – I simply don’t believe that. But you will be the centre of attention and you might have some tough and harsh decisions to make. I say make these decisions as a team and make them for you. I know more than most how much there can be to regret, but I firmly believe that a wedding lived and enjoyed the way you imagine it, is an un-regrettable wedding. And of all the days in your life, your wedding is not a day for any kind of regret.

My brother died at the age of only 31 of the cruellest, and most vicious illness. He is, and always will be completely forgiven for the actions that that illness bestowed upon all of us. However hard we felt it, having to be the one who lived through the experience every-day was undoubtedly the hardest task of all.

My brother was loved beyond all doubt, because he made us love him; he just couldn’t love himself.

My Dad shared this poem at my brother’s funeral;

I’ve read the words of poets and song writers and of literate men
But I cannot find you in their words
You are not in another room nor asleep
Not sailing over the horizon in a boat or sat on some distant shore
The light has not been turned out or the stars taken from the skies
I can’t find you in the arms of a loving god who wouldn’t answer your prayers.
But I know where you are.

You are with me when I hear the cry of a new born child and I see the look of love in a mothers’ eyes
Or when I see a boy who loves to play and laugh and shout
You will be every child who plays on the beach or paddles in the sea
You are every smile and tear and with me as I walk the fells and moors
You will be with me to laugh at crude and useless jokes
And even more as I ride my bike
We will marvel together at the green of the hills and the gold of the sun
You will be my compassion at seeing others struggle with life
You will be every guitar chord, rhythm and beat
You will be my wonder at the boundless universe and every shining star
You will be every argument I start that is pointless and going nowhere
You will be every meal I eat, and drink that I drink
You see (name) I know where you are.
You are with me.
You are me.

Anon.

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The author of this feature would prefer to remain anonymous but is one of our lovely blog readers and private Facebook group members (for brides to be/newlyweds). Our ‘From The Heart’ Sunday series was designed to create an opportunity for our readers to write their own blog features, on all matters of love, life. If you would like to contribute a From The Heart piece, we would dearly love to hear from you. It doesn’t matter what it’s about and it doesn’t have to be related to weddings at all – we’re looking for honest, authentic, personal, sad, happy, family, relationship, marriage, health, light-hearted, serious, baby, trying for baby, children, career, simple, complicated – real life issues.  We just need you to write from your heart. Keep it upbeat and witty, or share your thoughts anonymously on a more challenging or emotional subject. Please drop me a line at [email protected]. Love Annabel x