Mondays–V7E2–Seven Little Words

A memory come through my Facebook feed yesterday that stopped me in my tracks. You wouldn’t think something as innocuous as these seven little words would be so memorable, but it is…very much so. I posted this the day after the January 6th riots.

I didn’t believe that Joe Biden would be capable of finishing his four-year term as President and we would end up with Kamala as our President. I felt (and still also feel) that the only qualification she had to be Vice President, according to Joe Biden’s stated criteria, was that she was a woman. The fact that she had a more diverse racial makeup was also a plus. I mean, what better way to check all the boxes than being a non-white woman?

There had been a lot going on in my life before January 7, 2021; the rise of BLM (and living in almost the epicenter of the beginning of this, the Michael Brown era and being a former police officer and having a son who was a police officer), the death of my step-daughter by suicide (2019), the diagnosis of my brother with stage four kidney cancer (2020), and Covid. All these factors had made me, I don’t know exactly what…frustrated? disgusted? tired? angry?

Anyway, I posted what I thought was just a snarky comment and never gave it a thought…until about 5:00 p.m. that night when I received a text from my youngest brother. He is the one I adored and was wonderful and smart and witty and charming…and I could just go on. He asked me what I had meant by my Facebook post. I told him exactly what I had written earlier, and to my great shock and disbelief, he viciously lit into me. He wrote all kinds of terribly hurtful things, saying I needed to lose my anger and that he was ashamed that I was his sister. He also wrote that he wouldn’t be speaking to me for several months. I was so shocked that I tried calling him, but he didn’t answer. He wrote that he couldn’t talk to me because he was afraid he would say things that he would later regret (as though his written words wouldn’t have the same effect). I was completely shocked. We had never, in our fifty years of being brother and sister, never, ever shared a cross word.

After he told me he wouldn’t be speaking to me for several months, I ended our text conversation by telling him not to bother contacting me. But my last text was “I love you.” I was so upset that I called our other brother (the one who had been diagnosed with cancer, and who would die five months later) and sobbing, I told him what our brother said. He told me that he, too, had quit following me on Facebook because of my right-wing views (he was more left-wing leaning). I told him that it didn’t bother me because his opinions were his opinions. By the end of the conversation, he was crying too and I’ve always felt bad that I made him cry. I remember telling him that now he and “B” would be together and I would have no one. Through his tears, he said, “You still have me.”

Who would have ever thought that such a snarky (and actually innocent) comment could have caused so much hurt in my life? I’ve been hurt a lot in my life with family deaths and spouses who cheated, drank and controlled. But this hurt was worse. I loved my brother so much. He was my baby. I was twelve when he was born and although we didn’t live together very long (I got married when I was eighteen and he was six), he was still my very special brother.

This text conversation was on Wednesday, and I cried for the next four days. I have cried ennumerable times after this; I’m crying now as I write this. The thought that I had lost my little brother due to something innocent on my part was absolutely devastating. I was so devastated that looking at the large “Doors” posters he had commissioned from me was so painful that I took them off my living room walls and put his photo in the drawer. I couldn’t stand seeing anything that would trigger my emotions.

The following Monday, I got an envelope in the mail from him. I wasn’t emotionally equipped to open it, so I shoved it beneath the table runner. A couple of days later, I asked the Great Hunter to take the envelope to his room, read it and if it was anything but an apology, I didn’t want to see it.

He came back a short time later, handed me the envelope and said “You’ll want to read this.” It was typewritten and only my name and his were written. He apologized for his actions and for hurting my feelings (he had no idea how much he hurt me). He wrote that he had been so upset about the January 6th riots (why? I don’t know) and knowing I held views less than supportive of Biden and Kamala, he went to my Facebook page “looking for a fight.” He said after reading what I wrote and continuing to watch the news, he took his anger out on me. He wrote that I was on the receiving end of an unprovoked attack.

He ended the note by saying he wasn’t sure where we could go from here, but he wanted me to know how sorry he was for his actions and “deeply regret those 15 minutes of my life.”

I don’t remember how much time went by…weeks? months? before we spoke again and I think it was something to do with the digitizing work I did for him. Later in the year he asked me if I would like to go with him to Indiana to the Van Gogh Immersive Exhibit. I readily said yes, but my heart was very unsure if it was safe with him or not.

Everything was good on that trip. We took a trip together the next year to see the covered bridges of Indiana. We never spoke of the incident. I forgave it, but I never forgot it.

But now he’s gone and this memory still hurts, but then I remember what he wrote to me on my 70th birthday.