My Sweet Brother

My earliest memory of my brother was him hanging out on the hill beside the feedlot house where we lived.  I would make up elaborate stories with my Barbie dolls there and he would sometimes hangout and watch.  He and I were born two years apart; he was born before me the day after Halloween.

As I sat at a patio table at UC Davis hospital last July trying to make sense of previous week or so, I couldn’t help but reflect on the last time I’d been in the UC Davis hospital with Robert.   It was the most dire challenge I’d witnessed him face roughly 30 years ago when he attempted to end it all by stabbing himself in the heart.  I’d just attended Monet exhibit at the DeYoung Museum with friends when I stopped by a gas station with a phone booth outside of Golden Gate Park to let Dave know I was headed home.  Yes, this was before we all had cellphones.  Dave informed me of the unbelievable reality of what Robert had done.   Right after he’d stabbed himself he’d called Mom.  Mom immediate called 911.  A helicopter airlifted Robert to UC Davis. I immediately headed for UC Davis where he was in the hospital with my Mom.

But his journey began much earlier than that.  My first experience with Robert’s mental health was when he took a bottle of my Mom’s diet pills and ended up being admitted into the mental hospital because he was hallucinating.  He was no longer allowed to attend high school with me in Durham High School.   It was a longtime before he had another episode.   He was accepted in the Job Corp and for the post part we didn’t cross paths too much other than the occasional holiday family gathering until I got out of college.

I was living in an apartment in Hayward, California when he lost his job in Montrose, Colorado and I offered to have him come stay with me.  Shortly afterwards, I began to realize he showed signs of distress and I found a councilor who could talk with him.  He decided he wanted to return to Colorado until he was admitted in to the heavy equipment school he was studying to attend.  When he left Colorado to go to the trade school, he never arrived.  He abandoned his truck on the side of the road.  Eventually we learned he took a bus to Utah where a sheriff called my family.  My family took him to the mental hospital in Colorado Springs where he was diagnosed with Schizophrenia  He was released to live with my Mom.

When my Mom moved back to California, Robert came with Mom.  He’s lived in Grass Valley ever since then.  With the help of NAMI Mom began working more directly with Nevada County Mental Heath and learned about resources like Section 8 to help him with independent housing.  Unfortunately it was there that he got caught up with people doing “meth” and it is there that he stabbed himself in the heart.

During the pandemic he had a terrible bike accident and was once again hospitalized in Sacramento to repair his hand.  I wasn’t able to be with him because I was in San Diego helping my mother-in-law recover from a knee surgery.   A soon as I could, I came to visit him.   After that accident it was no longer safe for him to ride his bike.

In short, I have been checking-in on him and doing all I could to be there for him for the better part of my life.  Once Mom was not longer able to advocate for him, I became his primary family member to fill in the gaps that he couldn’t cover with the help of the team of individuals helping him from Nevada County Mental Health.

I had been in Montrose, Colorado visiting my family when I received a call from his case worker letting me know Robert had been admitted the day before into the Grass Valley hospital.  The same hospital where he’d been admitted for his TIA roughly a half-a-dozen years ago.    Back then he was able to ride his bike around town to handle all of his errands.  Now he’s barely able to walk to the grocery store and back.  I’d dropped off a cane for him to use just a month or so ago.  His heart rate was 30 bpm so the medial staff recommended he receive a pacemaker.   I’ve been worried about his weakness and balance for several months now.  But these are medical details, they don’t really describe the depths of feeling that bubble up inside me or explain why I feel so deeply about him.  Sure he’s my brother so some would simply believe it was simply the closeness of sister for her brother.  However, for me it is goes a lot deeper than than.