"Once I chose stillness over action the answer came to me. I had been asking the wrong question. Rather than “How do I save my brother?”, I should have asked, “How do I serve my brother?”


I live in a lovely neighborhood in Southern California. I’m fortunate to have found a house to rent–in my price range–in a beautiful, affluent community. The lawns are well-maintained and precisely landscaped, the cars are shiny and new, and there’s a wonderful park—one of the nicest in town—just across the street.

Last night, in that wonderful park, in this lovely neighborhood, in this affluent community, a man hanged himself on the monkey bars.

Suicide. So close to home. RIGHT ACROSS THE STREET.

I don’t know the details of the tragic event. In general, my heart breaks for anyone so ravaged by despair, as I cannot fathom how sad a person must be to commit such a violent act upon himself. But while my soul aches for his broken heart and I grieve for this stranger and his struggles, my mind doesn’t recoil from or find horror in the fact that a person died in the park where I walk my dog every single day.

The truth is, I have lots of experience with death. I’ve spent entirely too much time with it. I’ve been close to it. I know how it looks and how it smells. I know the deafening silence of it. I know the catastrophic loss it leaves in its wake. I know its subtleties–how it sneaks up silently and gradually. And I know its heart-stopping directness–how it bursts in from out of nowhere and shatters lives and hearts.

I know more about death than I’d ever wish on anyone, and I’ve seen enough of it to last me ten lifetimes.

For several years I worked as a transplant coordinator. I managed a non-profit organization charged with removing donated tissue (corneas, skin, bone, ligaments, fascia, etc.) from the recently deceased. My job description went something like this: manage staff, build relationships with hospitals, conduct educational outreach, counsel the next of kin of people who passed away in the last 6 hours, present them with the option to donate their loved one’s tissues, remove donated tissue from the recently deceased. Yeah, you read that last one right…

My office was in the Medical Examiner’s facility, in the middle of the oldest cemetery in town, across the street from the local trauma center. I spent much of my time communing with the dead in hospitals, morgues, funeral homes and Coroner’s offices. Usually this took place very late at night or in the early hours of the morning, and more often than not, I was alone with the dead. There was no way to un-see the things I saw. There was no way to pretend I was anywhere other than where I was, doing what I was doing. I have a sensitive soul and a heavy heart, and I ached for my charge and those he or she left behind.

I had spoken to them just a few hours earlier, you see. To the father of the teenage boy laying on the table in front of me, body ravaged by a horrific car accident. To the wife of the man who lost his valiant fight with cancer. To the mother of the beautiful baby girl born with spina bifida and congenital hydrocephalus who never really had a chance. I reached out to them—the living left behind— during the absolute worst hours of their lives, and I asked them the most intimate questions because they wanted their loved one’s final act to be of service. They wanted them to live on by helping others in need.

I never for a moment took my responsibilities lightly. The job was dark and I dealt with heavy stuff on a daily basis. I never saw or met the recipients of the donated tissue I recovered. That side of the transplant miracle was for another manager, with another organization. I didn’t deal with the life part of the equation—I only dealt with death.

So you see, I know death when it comes for your people. I know how it takes your parents, your children, your friends. But now that it is lurking close to home, I realize that I know nothing about death when it comes for mine.

Seven months ago, while in a Texas hospital recovering from surgery, my brother Chris suffered brain damage due to a lack of oxygen and/or nutrients to the brain. Within a 24 hour period, my brother went from being conversive and happy, to hallucinatory, combative and ultimately, unconscious. What followed were terrifying weeks as my brother literally fought for his life. Although he ultimately stabilized, he was completely bedridden and generally ‘out of it’ for months. Gradually, his mental faculties began to return and he is once again lucid and alert. The damage to his brain now manifests primarily as short term memory loss. He remembers things that happened 20 years ago, but not 20 days ago. He had a photographic memory before this ordeal, but now he’s lucky if he can recall what he had for breakfast.

Eventually, Chris was transferred to a skilled nursing facility where he has remained for the last 4 months. He gets daily physical therapy, but he has not yet relearned how to walk or even stand on his own. He picks at his food and has lost over 100 lbs since this ordeal began. On a recent trip to Texas to see him, I spent hours each day stretching his legs which were showing signs of atrophy. I begged, pleaded, and finally demanded that he eat his meals. I took him out of his room in a wheelchair so we could do physical therapy on our own in the hall or play bingo with the other residents. I did everything I could think of to pull him back from the brink. And it worked. He started getting better. He gained weight and took his first tentative steps in physical therapy. He began to smile and laugh again, and bits of his silly, sweet personality began to reemerge. When I left and came back home to California, the staff all agreed he was on the road to recovery having finally turned the corner. We were all thrilled with his progress.

But then things got worse.

The staff say he plateaued. He is now in constant, severe pain and his physical therapy has stalled. He still cannot walk or stand on his own. He is rapidly going downhill, and his emotional state is severely compromised. He is so very, very sad.

For seven months, I frantically tried to fix Chris’s situation, running from one possible solution to another. I spent money I didn’t have, leaving my life and family behind in CA to be by his side. And though it consumed most of my waking hours, nothing worked. I constantly asked myself and anyone who would listen, “What do I do?” “How do I save my brother?” Panicky terror and gut-wrenching guilt haunted me, as I wondered if I should be doing more to help him. Action and anger have been my ‘go-to’ responses for many years, but neither of them served me during this difficult time. Finally, out of desperation or exhaustion, or both, I turned within and listened to the voice that was whispering softly to me…

Be still. Hush. Listen. Feel. KNOW.

And I did.

Once I chose stillness over action the answer came to me. I had been asking the wrong question. Rather than “How do I save my brother?”, I should have asked, “How do I serve my brother?”  When I let go of the need to act and to fix and to fume, all doubt disappeared and I found myself left with the clarity and compassion to see that my precious brother is suffering and needs to come home. Now. As he is. Waiting for “as we would like him to be” means he will die in that nursing home, and he will die soon. They’ve done all they can for him, and it is time to turn the page on this chapter of his story.

“Are we bringing him home to die?”, I wondered. This was uncomfortable, so again, I turned to stillness for the answer. As I allowed the thought to settle over me, I was able to see the truth and the clarity behind the question. We are not bringing him home to die. We are bringing him home TO LIVE. This is how I will serve him.

The undeniable biological irony of life is that from the moment we are born we are all in the process of dying. But are we LIVING while doing it? Such a simple concept, and yet somehow we forget along the way. Animals know. They don’t waste time fretting about death because they are too busy living. They go about their days until they can’t anymore, and then they die. Simple. Natural. Wild.

I don’t know when my brother will die. It could be in two months, or it could be in two years. But I do know that in whatever time he has left, with the help of his family and friends, he will LIVE, on HIS terms, as he always has. He will laugh again. And he will feel the softness of his cat’s fur under his finger tips. He will be comforted as they purr him to sleep. In a few weeks he will celebrate his 54th birthday at home, and we will make it a BIG-HUGE-FREAKING-DEAL. He will sit in his recliner and his muscles will finally relax, after agonizing months trembling uncontrollably from the the pain of sitting in the same position in a wheelchair for hours on end. He will feel fresh air against his skin and sunlight on his face. He will be supported and surrounded by so much love. And that’s how he will live until he can’t anymore.

And then he will be still.

He will hush.

He will feel.

And he will KNOW.

Perhaps stillness alluded the man who hanged himself in the park across the street. I hope those he left behind find it. I saw them there last night, quietly huddled together on a park bench next to the monkey bars where he chose death over life. I silently sent them love and light, and my hopes that they someday find the peace in their loved one’s death that he was unable to find in life. And when they are ravaged by panic and gut-wrenching guilt, wondering if there was something they could have done to save his life, I hope they too will sit with the stillness and let it show them what it knows.

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