- Drugs
Growing up I looked up to my brother. For most of our childhood we shared a tiny room in a tiny house. So I guess you could say we shared everything. Whether it was riding bikes, jumping on pogo sticks or playing in forts made of pillows and old sheets, I mimicked his every move. He wasn’t afraid of anything. He ran the fastest, was the strongest and jumped off things of unimaginable heights. He got hurt more than anyone I’ve ever known. He broke bones, fell thru a roof, off of a roof and got hit by a car. But he was never afraid. The best thing I remember about my brother is that when he got in trouble, which was more often than not, he would never lie, he stood up and said “Yeah I did it.” He would bravely suffer the consequences without complaint.
Fast forward twenty years, being a proud little sister looking up to her brother is over. Now, well into our adult life, things have changed…..changed a lot. I no longer look up to my brother and my stomach now drops when I hear “Hey, aren’t you Donovan’s little sister?” I’m now afraid of what they will say next. After numerous bail outs, countless unreturned borrowed money, crashed cars, one lie after another, and many, many sleepless nights up worrying whether or not he will live through another night.
Unlike my mother who will continue the fight to love, protect, support, and enable him, I am done. I love my brother. I hold on to the good old days, the memories when he was my older brother, the strong, brave older brother I once looked up to, but I am done.
People who are not familiar with drug abuse say things like “Well, he’s your brother.” do not understand. The person who broke into that house, the person who doesn’t show up for his son’s basketball game, the person who will continue to lie and go to any measure to get drugs, is not my brother. My brother was strong, my brother was brave, my brother looked out for me. It breaks my heart that my brother is gone due to drugs.
I couldn’t imagine going into every moment and every horrible detail that’s happened over the last 15 years but I can tell you a few that are engrained forever in my head and in my heart. There was one phone call I will never forget, it was about 11 pm on a weeknight. I knew it was him. I haven’t heard from him in a while but that particular week I had ready received about 5 frantic calls with crazy stories and excuses looking for money. The calls always came from a strange number. My heart pounds every time I see an unknown number still. I said, “Hello?” He said, “Kate,” and mumbled something. It sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles. He said in slow motion “I took a bunch of pills and I will no longer be a bother to everyone” and then hung up. I will never forget his voice. It was fear mixed with shame. I immediately hung up and called my mom. At this point we didn’t know exactly where he was staying, so knocking on every door in the complex was our only option. The thought of him wanting to take his own life drenched me in sadness. The fact I didn’t even know where my own brother, who once was my best friend, lived killed me. There was nothing I could do but wait. We never found him that night, luckily like many other things in his life, he had failed. In this case he lived.
Up until this point we were all just as much in denial as my brother. So many times we found ourselves saying “He’s better, he looks good today!”
The first time I realized my brother was an addict was the next phone call I received from him. It was from a blocked number which I had begun to know and recognized well. It was from jail. That first sound you hear from the operator stating “You have a collect call,” became more and more common over the years. This time he has a list of things I need to do for him. Although the calls all started the same “I’m innocent, it wasn’t me” they always ended differently. I think back on how that was one of the things I admired about him. He never lied and always admitted the truth.
Now as a junkie, he blames everyone and everybody but himself.