MY BROTHER'S DEATH: A BIG HEART WITH COMPLICATIONS

My brother John died in a motorcycle accident in Florida yesterday afternoon. I wept when the phonecall came from my sister. And I wept several times after that. The depth of my grief surprised me and still surprises me this morning. We were not particularly close for most of our lives. We come from a family of people who love each other best from a comfortable distance, even when we are together. But there was extra distance between John and me. Most of it is my fault. I am not a very brotherly brother. And some of it is his fault. He was a big-hearted man full of love and prickly with complications and contradictions. But he wanted with all his heart for us to be brotherly brothers. He called me at least once a week, often more, for the past seven or eight years, after we went most of a decade without speaking. His calls always began the same way,"What you doing?" And they always ended the same way, "Love you, Bro." No matter what we talked about. I rarely welcomed his calls and sometimes ignored them. But when I answered, I always talked to him. And I answered his calls more and more over time. When I talked to him I could feel him working to close the gap between us and feel myself backing away. But he kept calling and I kept answering. Were we becoming more brotherly brothers? I am not sure. John and I last talked on Friday afternoon. "Love you, Bro," he said before he hung up. "Bye," I said. His love and my goodbye. It was what usually happened when we talked. But perhaps he came closer to me than I was willing to admit. And perhaps that is the message my grief and tears have delivered to me.