In addition to oiling my buffet in preparation for Christmas Decorations, I also took down all the “Death Cards”. The top of the buffet was crammed full of cards I received because of the deaths that have occurred this year. If you have read my blog for a bit you probably know about my mom dying. She died in April. It was sudden to me, yet it dragged out for 10 days while she waited, with a tube in her throat, unable to speak, for the doctors to take the tube out so she could die. But then she didn’t die for another 11 days. I have a separate page here on my blog for her. You are probably aware of the death of our cat. She was so sweet. I like to think she was an angel and I will see her again. I know she did a lot for the people she encountered. But you might not know about my brother. Yeah, he was the first one to die. He died in January. I got a call from my niece saying he was dead.
Now, I haven’t mentioned my brother because at the time there was some legal issues or more accurately there COULD have been legal issues. My brother was a widower and a single parent. He and his daughter lived in another state and we needed to get her guardianship and all that stuff taken care of before word got out. My niece has life goals so she wanted to finish her school year up where she lived before she relocated. So she was top priority. By the time everything was straightened out AND I felt like sharing about his death, my mom got sick. I literally was going to post about my brother that week.
My mom was waiting to die for a long time (as I mentioned). She went in the hospital for one thing, she was told they could “fix it”, but then they decided they couldn’t and told her she had to decide when to die. Not an easy choice. She picked a day and it didn’t go as they had thought. So that was another process. During all of this I was focused on her. And I thought that (think that) the way people die in the United States is so horrific, I was writing posts about that. I was dealing with all of that. I was not sharing about my brother.
Then, our cat died. As I have mentioned in other posts, I am not really a writer. I had never really experienced the “release” people get from writing or journaling. But with posting about my mom and the cat I kinda understood. Plus, it is soooo amazingly helpful to get support from people all over, close-in-person friends as well as people who I have never met face-to-face but have online relationships with. So I was supported by that.
Now my mom’s memorial is over. People keep questioning me about getting another cat. With life moving on, I feel I am ready to share. I feel I need to tell the world about my brother’s death. Since I shared about all the other deaths, his should not go unmentioned.
I thought it would be appropriate to share now, while I am putting away all the cards of love — because that is what they really are. They are notes and cards of expressions of love ABOUT death. It was so heart-warming to have received those tokens. It is nice to have them still.
For those that want more details, because death makes us curious, my brother was 48, he was not in the best of health and he died of an aneurysm. It is ok to be curious. That is human nature. You are welcome to ask more questions if you want. I reserve the right to answer them in a reply on my blog or privately via e-mail, though. There might be more posts in the future . . . but for now here it is.
My awesome neice has since been relocated and is doing well. She is awesome because life at her age is “hard” enough without all the stuff she has been given to deal with. We have yet to see how it all turns out.
So, take a moment, if you knew my brother or not . . . . . thanks.
Steven L. Bacho 06.18.1965 – 01.17.14
