One of my favorite childhood toys at my grandma’s house was a hospice bed. There was nothing so exciting as those buttons on the side that took you on a rollercoaster; it was a magical bed. PawPaw died in that bed. I was there. We didn’t play in it while he was alive; he didn’t like rollercoasters, he said it was no time for games.

Nobody prepares you for entering this world, for coming into yourself as a child, for all the interactions and small moments with the space around you. You just do it, you grow up. So then, what do you do when you find out your brother is dying? What do you do when nobody acknowledges it? What do you do when you’re alone, encapsulated by fear, with no parent willing to sit you down and explain to you that they love you, they care for you, and they’re here for you?

My big brother almost died. A lot of times. And I sat there and watched, doing nothing except feeling bad for myself. And being scared. And now I have to bear that guilt. I abandoned him when he needed me most.

I was 11. I was crippled with anxiety that I’d be fat and ugly forever. I found solace then in annoying my big brother, Dan. I loved playing with him, yelling at him across the hall and barging into his room unannounced (and certainly not wanted). He got sick at some point around then. I remember being so young, so vulnerable, and walking past my parents room hearing my big brother crying to my mom – “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die”. For some reason, my dad stood guard in front of that bedroom door – as if Dan’s grief wasn’t allowed to be felt by the rest of us. Upon my asking what was going on, I got no explanation, no comforting, just “go to your room, this is none of your business”. Wait, what?

My two younger siblings were just getting started, just getting to the point of being people with thoughts, emotions, and experiences of their own, and I’m just a kid myself! Help me understand! I knew then that my job was to shield them from whatever hell it was that I just stumbled upon.

So I helped mom paint his bedroom a light beige color “for brighter walls and lighter feelings”, I helped set up the “happy light” to blind his depression, I scrubbed my desk with all my might with the Clorox wipes she sent us with to school to keep our house infection free. All the while, I never once had the courage to actually ask Dan what was going on, if he was ok, if I could help HIM- I’m a smart girl, I can tell when I don’t want to know the answer to something like that.

I was a small child when I watched my grandfather die. We all stayed at their house as he lay in his hospice bed, fading away. One day, near the end, I remember being startled as he shot straight up and started talking as if he hadn’t been comatose just moments before. As an adult, I would’ve seen this as what it was – the last big kick of energy before you really go. Before you leave. But in my small mind I saw it as him coming back to us, as him staying around! Death defeated!

He died that night while I slept in the next room. My dad told me about it as I sat on his lap, completely shocked and confused as to why he wasn’t in the living room where he had been the last couple weeks. Where did he go? Does this mean he’s ok now? It’s interesting to consider how the brain picks and chooses things to remember from traumas like that – I have no idea exactly how old I was when that happened, what grade of school I was in, and yet I vividly remember the quietness of my grandma’s house, the quiet sobs from a woman who never cries, the emptiness.

I remember thinking a funeral was a very strange thing. All I have left of it now is glimpses of running around a church playroom with my cousins, getting pulled into the sanctuary and being told to be quiet, tears coming down my face as we sat there on the front row, my parents holding hands, the muffled sound of How Great Thou Art.

Years later, after successfully undergoing a living liver donation to save Dan (and myself from years of shame), I sat in a similar position, as emotional and uncomfortable as I was on that church pew. Parents holding hands, quiet tears, prayers murmured. I laid in that hospital bed, struck with the weight of what I’d just done, the weight lifted off of me knowing I’d finally done something to help him. And I cried. And I felt a shift, no longer seeing that bed as a rollercoaster. Pawpaw was right, it was no time for games.

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

❤ Bev