December marks the winter solstice, the point where the sun is at it furthest from us (northern hemisphere of earth). I have always suffered seasonal affective disorder (mild sadness or melancholy in winter when the sunlight is low intensity). This year December was particularly bad — I didn’t even put up a Christmas tree.
Early in the month a vertebra in my lower back shifted out of line and was pinching a nerve and causing lots of pain. I couldn’t walk, sit, or do much of anything but lay in bed moaning, groaning and feeling sorry for myself. The doctor suggested it was age related.
As if that wasn’t enough the day after the slipped vertebra my younger brother (he had Down Syndrome) died in his sleep. When he was born, in the middle 1940s, most children with Down Syndrome were warehoused in residential state-hospital-schools. My parents chose to raise him at home.
I was three years older than him — we were babies together and I drew some of my identity, my self image from him. He found pleasure in the simple events of life: helping in the garden, feeding his rabbits, playing with the dog, hauling rocks in his little red wagon. He was upbeat and friendly as if he did not know what he was missing.
As a child I was embarrassed and would get mad at him because he would act up and make a spectacle of himself in public and people would stare, snicker and point. We other siblings had to take care of, make concessions to and defend him from others who might want to be cruel. I secretly hated him for being who and what he was and felt guilty because I did. We were family bound by a genetic tie. In college I packed that emotional baggage into a closet in my mind and shut the door. I lived in denial and tried to not look back. I didn’t deny that he existed but throughout my life I did not volunteer the information readily. If a person knew me long enough they would eventually meet my extended family.
At the time of his death he was in assisted living. I visited him a couple of times in his later years but he lived 150 miles away — excuses to stay away were not hard to find.
I understand he died peacefully in his sleep but long buried emotions came tumbling out at the news. The fact that he died does not bother me nearly as much as that he never really had much of a life, plus my guilt for resenting and begrudging him his identity. All my life the question jumped from: “Why me?” to, “Why him?” to just plain “Why?” I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.
At the lowest point of my despair I thought about euthanasia and momentarily wished I was a horse so that someone would shoot me. Then, I don’t know what happened. Maybe endorphins from my physical therapy started to kick in; maybe the sun reached the southernmost point in its trek across the sky, turned and started northward again; maybe my little brother forgave me. I realized that I had not written all that I want to write in my lifetime. If my body is starting to show its age and wear out I figured I’d better get busy and focus on stories of substance with themes and ideas that are important to me, help define me as a human being, show me as someone who lived and hopefully made a difference in the world. I remembered after the winter solstice comes the new year, new beginnings and a chance to start over.
