the history of scott's nub: #1

scottie had been staying with my dad in florida during the spring of 2007. dad decided to leave the cold new jersey winters once & for all & move into the condo that was owned by my grandparents in st. petersburg. since scottie had been living with him in mt. laurel & didn't have anywhere else to go, he made the trip south with dad. soon enough, scottie discovered that hated living down there. he felt very isolated & didn't have any friends. he eventually found a pretty decent job working on the numerous bridges around the gulf. but he was never one to easily meld into the working man lifestyle. he could never wake up early on his own - even during his school years - & he was a little absent minded when it came to working safely in dangerous conditions. i'm not sure exactly if he was let go or quit, but in the end it was probably a little of both. by may scottie had made plans to take the greyhound back up north, move in with some friends, & got a lead on a job with a tree company. he was only his third day on the job when he had the accident.

when i think back to that day in may 2007, it seems like it was an ominous foreshadowing to scottie's passing. i was having a wonderful morning with some girlfriends, drinking coffee & playing with their children, when my husband & mom called me almost simultaneously. at first i ignored both of their phone calls, figuring i would back to them when i didn't mind the interruptions. but they called repeatedly. i eventually talked to mike who told me that scottie's friend called & said that he had gotten into an accident at his job. he was at cooper hospital in camden & i should probably get over there as soon as possible. on the way home, i talked to my mom, who was already driving up from florida with her boyfriend, al & his dying father. she was in a panic; i told her not to worry that i would take care of scottie.

i got home, the whole while thinking scott had just a minor cut his hand with a chainsaw or something. mike & i drove started driving to the hospital when he said, "sarah i have to tell you something about scottie." my brother's friend had told mike that scott cut off some fingers with a log splitter. my husband didn't want me to be blindsided at the hospital. i pulled the car over because i couldn't breathe. i felt sick. i was so scared for my poor little brother, who didn't have anyone around but me.

when we got to the hospital, the doctor took mike & me into a waiting room & told us the severity & insanity of the situation. scott had lost the 3 middle fingers on his right hand, & a small sliver of his thumb. they were going to try to save 2 of the digits by sewing them back on; the third was too mangled so it would be used for "parts" (veins, nerves, etc). the doctor said that they were going to take out the middle bone in the hand so it wouldn't look too big with only 4 fingers. the surgery would take all night & into early morning. by then, it was only early afternoon.

i couldn't think straight. i felt angry that i was put in that position. we were brother & sister: we were supposed to be playing, fighting, laughing, singing, getting on each other's nerves.  i wasn't supposed to be my brother's emergency contact.

the doctor told me to go see scott. he'd be pretty doped up so he wouldn't be able to feel anything & because he'd be going into surgery pretty quickly. i went in & saw my baby brother's precious face & he smiled. i burst into tears. i wanted to remain strong for him but i couldn't. i was too scared. i tried to find his hand, but it was already wrapped up in bandages. on his leg was a plastic ziplock bag & inside was the part of his thumb that had been cut off. i looked away hurriedly, hoping not bring scott's attention to it. my brother told me not to worry, that everything would be alright. scottie was always saying shit like that. i managed to look in his eyes, & even through all the medication, i could see how he didn't really believe what he was telling me.

they let me stay with scottie until he was ready for the inconceivably intricate, medically miraculous procedure to save his fingers. i hugged him so hard & said i'd see him when he got out. i was preparing myself for a long night in the waiting room, when the surgeon told me that i wouldn't be allowed to see my brother right after surgery because he'd be too out of it & needed recovery. he said that i should leave, get as much sleep as possible, & come back when visiting hours in the intensive care unit started the following morning.

& so i left. but i couldn't sleep. i was so grateful when amir, scott's plastic surgeon, called at around 3 or 4 in the morning to assure me that everything went fine; that time would only tell to see if scott's hand would reject the same fingers that stood atop his broad palm for the past 2 decades, without a second thought. for now, we could only wait & hope.

my other brother.. steven

at 2 am on a thursday morning, i got the phone call from my mom about scott being in the hospital. i first remembered of my dad, whom my mom said she had called already. my next thoughts turned toward my other brother steve. he has lived on the other side of the world in china for the past 5 years. he has had the isolating experience of hearing the family news over email or internet phone, that is if we can get a hold of him. this is the way i told steven that he was going to be an uncle for the first time, or how steven consoled me after my father-in-law passed away. it was how my brother, on his birthday, found out that scottie had lost 3 fingers on his hand in the log splitter accident.

after hearing about scottie, i knew that steve would feel helpless & confused being 7,410 miles away. none of us were exactly sure what to tell him either. on top of everything else, my dad, mom & i were all in extreme denial. we knew that scott hadn't been breathing for a significant amount of time; that his heart stopped & they were able to bring him back. but we had to believe that he would get better. at that moment, the thought of him not making it was too much to consider.

my mom told me that dad was going to email steve later in the morning, & i immediately felt uneasy. i remembered how upset steve was when hearing about scott's accident 4 years ago, how he seriously contemplated coming home & how sad he was not to be here to comfort us, how he couldn't be comforted by us. i convinced my dad to call him, that by hearing his voice steven would be more reassured than reading some vague, upsetting words on the computer screen. not surprisingly, my brother called my mom & me at the hospital right after he got the news. dad, having just been with scott for nearly half of the year & therefore being the deepest in denial, made it seem like scott would ultimately be okay & that steve should stay in china. i had to tell him otherwise. & as the day progressed with the outcome becoming more clear & dire, i had to tell my brother steve that our brother scott wasn't going to survive.

i listened to him breakdown, & waited on the phone for as long as he needed me. the one person in the world that i could relate to was on the other side of the globe. it wasn't like we were alone: i had my family & he luckily had his very supportive girlfriend. but for 24 years it was us 3, my brothers & me. we had memories that no one else knew. we had jokes that no one else would think were funny. we had made-up songs, hand shakes, games during long car rides, & deep seeded holiday rituals. in the end, we believed we would always have each other, despite our hardships or being far apart.

steven asked me to talk to scott, in case he couldn't make it to the hospital in enough time. i put my phone on speaker mode & held it up to scottie's ear. i listened, destitute & filled with sorrow, while my one brother pleaded with my other brother to fight & hang on to his life. steve cried as he asked for forgiveness for their years of brotherly bickering & apologized living so far away. he lamented the fact that scott wouldn't be around for his future milestones, like getting married & having kids. steven assured our brother that we didn't care what he had done, that we didn't want to go through life without him, that we didn't want him to move on without knowing how much we would always love him. steven caught an early flight out of shanghai & made it to philadelphia by early afternoon on friday. my family, miraculously, would be able to stay with scott leading up to the moment they took him off of life support.

it is an awful loss when a sibling dies young. i had so many dreams for my brothers & me. i would envision steven moving back to the US & living in philadelphia. i would dream about scott eventually getting clean, finding a job & settling down. i saw them both getting married & having kids & all of the cousins would be best friends. i could see us coming together for every holiday, something we never got to do with my mom's or my dad's brothers because we lived too far away. it is near impossible to let go of those desires. i still have them. i think i will always mourn them.

it has been an immeasurable blessing to have steven around the fast few weeks; to see him be an uncle to my son; to have a reminder that i still have a brother; to relive the memories of scottie with someone who shares those same visions; to experience a common hope in a unknowable & somewhat imperfect future. i am not looking forward to him making the 7,410 mile trip back across the world. but i am so thankful to have him. & i hope he knows how sorry am for any of our silly sibling fights; that it doesn't matter what he has done or will do in the future.. i will always love him.

21 days later: harry's first birthday

yesterday, february 11, 2011, was my son harry's first birthday. it also marked 3 weeks since my brother scottie died. in the morning harry & i were driving to playgroup & i couldn't help but think about what i was doing at that moment 21 days ago. at that point my mom & i knew that scottie wasn't going to make it. the doctor had told us that he wasn't sure if scott was "dead" yet. he explained that there were 2 ways of declaring someone deceased. the first is obvious & a little easier to rationalize; it is when the heart stops beating. the second is difficult; it is when the brain stops functioning. in scott's case, his heart was beating (with help from numerous amounts of drugs) & his lungs were breathing (because of a machine) so it's simple to look at him & convince yourself that he is going to get better with some time & hospital elbow grease. but we could tell from pretty early on, through the sympathetic looks of the nurses & somber tones of the doctors, that things weren't looking too hopeful.

so 3 weeks ago, around the same time i was driving harry to play with his little friends, hospital staff from the neurological department were preforming tests on scott to see if he could, in fact, be declared brain dead. they gave my mom & i the choice if we wanted to stay in the room & watch, & we did. i knew that scott would never be the brother that i had once known. we figured out that scottie hadn't been breathing for around 40 minutes, not the 20 minutes we first thought. either way, 4 minutes without oxygen to the brain usually results in brain damage at the very least. i think i just wanted the reassurance, or to be there if something miraculous did happen. the doctor yelled loudly in his ears, checked for pupil dilation, pinched his appendages, & tickled his feet. there was no reaction. you could see the doctor's slight shake of his head & whisper to his assistant. he explained to us that since scott had so many drugs in his system prior to coming into the hospital, they would have to wait until all of them were fully cleared before pronouncing him brain dead. but regardless, it wasn't appearing that he had any kind of activity. later, they would come back & pour cold water in his ears. a healthy brain would cause the eyes to move in the direction of the water, even if the person was unconscious. scottie's usually clear blue eyes, that matched everyone's eyes in my family, remained cloudy & blank as they stared at the ceiling.

my own blue pupils began to flood with tears as i watched the philadelphia skyline pass around me. i looked to the left of me & noticed the "gift of life" building looming overhead. i must have seen it hundreds of times before, but that moment was the first time i really contemplated it. 3 weeks ago, mary from the gift of life organization, was working hard to find recipients for scott's organs. she was tender & compassionate with us; she listened to scottie stories, looked lovingly at the photos we had brought in of him when scott was vibrant & alive, & cried with us when she couldn't remain strong. 21 days later, scottie's kidneys were being kept alive in 2 other bodies.

as much i thought of my brother's death 3 weeks ago, i relived the beautiful birth of my baby boy 1 year ago: my unbelievably quick progression of labor in the morning; mike groggily digging the car out of the snow from the previous day's blizzard, driving us through red lights on the slippery streets with the blinkers on to the birthing center; at 1:16 pm feeling my full power of being a woman, reaching down to pull out my miracle child,  & announcing that he was a boy. it was the brightest, most wonderful day of my life...

scottie was so excited to be an uncle. since my labor had advanced so swiftly, i wasn't able to make the "just so you know" phone calls to all of my family members, like scottie. he found out that i was in labor through my mom. with his ingenuity & tenacity, he took public transportation from new jersey to philadelphia to the bryn mawr hospital, even though for the past 9 months he knew we had been preparing to deliver at the birth center. my mom, in the middle of holding up my right leg during some intense contractions, got a phone call from scottie saying he was at the hospital & he couldn't find me. luckily, we were just down the road & he made it there to hold his tiny new nephew.

last night mike & i had a small party for successfully completing harry's first year, proud of the fact that we had kept him alive & ourselves relatively sane. our friends came over to celebrate with us. & i was again reminded how loved my little threesome is, how we are unconsciously & continually taken care of.  when the last person left, i looked at the time & it was nearing the moment of scott's final breath. i solemnly replayed those last minutes & realized that maybe scottie, with his ingenuity & tenacity, is still taking care of me, of harry, & the rest of my family. maybe i can't find him now.. but i know he will always find me.

currently, cursing has become my bridge to loving

lately i've been looking into finding a grief support group. there are so many to choose from. but i specifically wanted to find one that dealt with the death of a family member due to overdosing. i didn't know if they even existed. addicts have lots of stigmas attached to them.. as does death from overdosing, which goes without saying. i'm sure it is difficult for someone on the outside to understand what my family is going through.. hell it's hard for us to understand what we're going through. it's simple to see addicts as having the power to "say no" & take control of their lives. but only now am i beginning to see that this is so far from the truth. my brother wasn't merely some bad guy who abandoned his family for drugs. scottie, as a doctor so aptly put it at the hospital, had a terminal illness. with cancer or heart disease, you can rationalize someone's death because they had a physical sickness that ultimately overtook them. my brother, as an addict, had a mental sickness that ultimately overtook him just the same.

i found a group called GRASP, grief recovery after a substance passing. it was founded by a couple who lost their son due to a drug overdose. there is a group that meets in philly every wednesday night so i emailed fran, a woman who lost her son nearly 3 years ago & facilitator of the local chapter. she wrote me a tender caring email, filled with sympathy & sadness. although i had never met her, i felt like she understood me. my friends have been wonderful.. some going beyond anything i could have imagined to show me love. & i sincerely appreciate every single one of them. but not many can know what it's like to have a sibling as an addict. & none know what it's like to have one overdose & die. it is reassuring to know that there are others out there who can tangibly relate to what i am going through. it's not just watching a son, or brother die so young & suddenly, but to have watched him struggle with drugs & alcohol for years; to think that you had something to do with his addiction; to believe that you could have saved him if you tried hard & long enough; to have had so many hopes for a future that will never come, & mourn those along with the loss of your family.

fran also passed along another email with the 5 steps of grieving. the first & most recognized being denial. the second undervalued step is anger. the authors of the article write, "anger is a necessary stage of the healing process. be willing to feel your anger, even though it may seem endless." i never really considered myself an angry person, but lately i feel so much of it & i had no idea where it was coming from. i don't feel it towards scottie or god or even myself. unfortunately, i feel irritation with the 2 things in my life that are most innocent & loving: my dog & my son. i am angry at their neediness & that i can't leave the room for a second without penny following me & harry crying for me to come back. i'm angry that harry's been a little sick & therefore hasn't been sleeping well; neither have i. i'm angry that penny barks incessantly at anyone who comes to the door, even our roommates, & consistently locks herself in the bathroom just so i will let her out again. but i can't explain that to either of them. to them, i am their world. they always want to be around me, & i constantly feel like i'm giving & giving. but right now i have nothing left to give.

according to the article, i am assured that:
"there are many other emotions under the anger & you will get to them in time, but anger is the emotion we are most used to managing. the truth is that anger has no limits... underneath anger is pain, your pain. it is natural to feel deserted & abandoned, but we live in a society that fears anger. anger is strength & it can be an anchor, giving temporary structure to the nothingness of loss. at first grief feels like being lost at sea: no connection to anything. then you get angry at someone... suddenly you have structure - your anger towards them. the anger becomes a bridge over the open sea, a connection from you to them. it is something to hold onto; and a connection made from the strength of anger feels better than nothing. we usually know more about suppressing anger than feeling it."

but here comes the best part: "the anger is just another indication of the intensity of your love."

i think deep down, i am allowing myself to feel anger towards my dog & my baby boy because they won't remember this or hold it against me & they love me regardless.

hopefully soon this anger will pass. i'm sure some sleep, a healthier baby & the dog whisperer couldn't hurt. but for now i know i have to feel any emotion with intensity as it comes. & allow myself some grace & curse words. because i am just connecting, & feeling, & being alive.. & ultimately i am deepening my capacity to love.

it's a beautiful reality

today, wednesday february 9th, i flew back to philadelphia from florida.. away from the sun, away from my dad & brother, away from distractions. harry had been having a hell of a time sleeping the last couple days & nights so he passed out almost the minute the plane took off & left me to dwell on my neglected thoughts. i realized that 3 weeks ago, wednesday january 19th, scottie was also coming back to philadelphia from florida. he had decided the monday prior that he was going to leave by greyhound. he had finally received settlement money from a workman's compensation case. three and a half years ago my brother had his 3 middle fingers cut off of his right hand while operating a log splitter. he got the adjustment check in the mail & made the decision to come back north. my dad tried to get him to stay put. my mom's last conversation with scottie was a heated one. she was trying to convince him to remain in florida for just a while longer, & he got angry with her. his mind was made up. he was going to take the tuesday morning greyhound & would get back to philly on wednesday afternoon. i would be landing at nearly the same time that scottie's bus touched down at the greyhound station.

we all knew that scottie shouldn't be coming back to philly. but it wasn't like he was completely clean while living with my dad. he was drunk & nasty when i talked to him on thanksgiving. & the sunday before he left, my dad took him to the hospital because scott had been complaining of heart palpitations & not sleeping. it turns out he was going through acute alcohol withdraw. he stayed overnight & checked himself out early monday. i'm sure that there had been other instances of alcohol or drug abuse, but my dad most likely didn't tell my mom & me because he didn't want to concern us. or he turned a blind eye because he wanted so desperately to believe that scottie was actually getting better.

scottie had called me the saturday before he left florida, the day before he was admitted for alcohol withdraw. the only reason i picked up my phone is because i thought it was my dad. usually when scottie called, it was a strained conversation. it was hard to understand what exactly he was getting at. i would try hard not to get annoyed with what he was saying, & try equally as hard to get off the phone as quickly as possible. luckily, this wasn't one of those talks. when i answered, my brother pretended to be my dad, which he frequently did & with surprising similarity, but this time i knew it was him. he said he was on a walk & just wanted to say hi. he said that he had quit drinking again & was having trouble sleeping. he said that he loved looking at the pictures that i posted on facebook of harry & me. & that he couldn't wait to see his nephew again. i said that i couldn't wait for him to see harry too. but not to worry, there would be plenty of time for that... we got to say to one another: "i miss you" & "i love you." & that was my last conversation i would ever have with my brother.

my mom called me on monday to tell me about scottie's decision to come back to philly. i felt my stomach turn & i almost became physically ill, like something inside was trying to alert me for the next few days. mom & i decided to spend tuesday & wednesday together, to try to keep the fear & worry away, or at least subsided. & in case scott called either of us to pick him up from the bus depot, we would be together, a strong united front. we had a wonderful 2 days of bonding, playing dr. mario, making & eating food, staying up late, laughing.

we never heard from scott on wednesday. my dad let us know sometime in the afternoon that scottie had called saying he had arrived safely. he was using his friend's phone so he couldn't talk long. we were somewhat relieved that we wouldn't have to make the decision to pick up scott or not. we didn't have to worry if he was drunk or wasted, or if he would want us to immediately drop him off at the park to score drugs from his friends.

all this was happening exactly 3 weeks ago. & i was reliving it at 32,000 feet above the ground, with my son, whose turns 1 on friday, softly sleeping on my lap. it was all too much & i silently cried against the airplane window for the first time in a couple days. i didn't not want to leave florida to come back to this reality that i've had the fortune of ignoring for the past week.

towards the end of the flight, harry woke up with a sweet smile on his face. he ate the complimentary crackers i had saved for him while we watched the snow-covered earth - the same earth that scottie was traveling across 3 weeks ago - grow closer & closer. after we landed, i walked the long corridors of the airport & quickly down the stairs to find mike waiting by the baggage claim with a dozen red roses. i hugged my husband; he took harry & they nuzzled. i watched my family & was reminded that this is my reality. it would never be what it was before, when scottie was alive. but it would somehow still be beautiful, just as my brother would want it to be.

a day in the life without my brother

yesterday i had my first extended period without thinking of scottie. my dad & his girlfriend, nancy took my uncle chip, steven, harry & i to an aquarium in sarasota called mote marina. for a good 2-3 hours scott failed to flit through my memory. i didn't wonder what it would be like if he was with us. i didn't reminisce of other times that scott & i were in a similar, or even a not so similar situation. i didn't get pains in my stomach, knowing that scott would never be able to enjoy a day like that with us in the future. i didn't miss him at all, because i hadn't thought about him for even a second.

instead i studied the sea creatures swimming in glass cages because i would probably never see them in the wild. i happily watched my brother bond with his nephew, whom he never gets to see living so far away in shanghai. i saw how happy harry was to be carried around in the front pack & see sharks, jellyfish, blowfish & lots of other life that he probably wouldn't remember, for the first time. i enjoyed not having to carry my heavy son around, marveled at the seahorse couplings entwining their tails around each other, relived my childhood fantasy of becoming a dolfin trainer while watching them jump through the air during their teaching session.

it saddens me to realize that scott's death will surely become more normal in my life. as time passes, & it always does, we will become more & more used to him not being around. & the frequency of my thoughts of him will become fewer & fewer. just 2 weeks ago, he was the only thing i could consider. now, he is already fading, like an old photograph on the wall succumbing to the sun's harmful rays. i want to keep scott a vivid reality, without sorrow or detachment; just like the plants on my windowsill: i watch them grow & water them as needed. but even moreso i want him to be with me when harry says his first word & distinguishes a pelican from any other bird. i want to lay next to him on the beach until it gets too hot & we race elegantly into the water, like baywatch lifeguards. i want to find sand dollars, & sand crabs by the bucketfulls, for the sheer pleasure of collecting, & leave them on the surf at the end of a long day.

i guess i'll have to get through today, & forgive myself for not inviting scottie into every second of my life. tomorrow may be harder.. but it may be easier still.. & i'll have to learn to take whatever comes & be okay.

scottie's twin nightmare(s)

scottie had this irrational fear of sleeping alone... that seemed to only be understood by me. because he was the youngest sibling, my parents weren't as strict when it came to watching scary & somewhat inappropriate movies with the rest of the family, when he should probably have been playing with his teenage mutant ninja turtles instead. scott's ultimate 'love to be afraid' of films was the shining, which now watching it as an adult, is totally scary for any person in their right mind, let alone a 5 year old.  he was particularly terrified of the twin girl apparitions & wouldn't dare venture in any room, even if adjacent to the one that everyone was in, if he had to go there alone. & on top of that, my dad loved those television shows like unsolved mysteries, that had segments so horrifying you'd be praying for an update at the end saying that they nabbed the serial killer because of viewers like us.

so nighttime was completely horrifying to scottie. he & our other brother steven would lay in their separate beds in the room that they shared; steve would be slowly nodding off to sleep while scott had visions of the twin girls from the shining, standing in the middle of the bedroom saying, "come play with us scottie.. forever.. & ever.. & ever..." just as steve reached the edge of slumber, scott would whisper into the darkness, "steven?..."

and steve would answer, with slight annoyance, "yeah?"

"can i sleep with you?"

"no." & this exchange would happen a few more times, with steven's tolerance dwindling & scott's fear growing. eventually he would give up & quickly creep down the dimly lit hallway to the last bedroom. i would have my door ajar & my sheets turned back, ready for my little brother to climb in next to me. i would always let scottie sleep with me.. because, secretly, i was afraid too. even though i was only 10, & he was 5, & we would never be able to protect each other, it was reassuring to have his warm little body breathing softly next to me. all the demons that plagued my thoughts in the dark: like bad guys waiting outside my window or a small fire quickly growing to an inferno enveloping the entire house, would disappear because i wasn't alone anymore.

what it came down to at the end of the day, or sometimes in the middle of the night, is that we needed each other to bring us some kind of peace & comfort in a world that was otherwise unpredictable, & irrationally & at the same time, reasonably frightening.