Promises and My Little Brother

The last time I saw my grandpa, Poppy, I promised him a few things. There were too many of us to see him all at once, so me and my siblings and cousins all took turns going in there to talk to him one last time, to say goodbye. When it was my turn, I didn’t know what to say—I never do—so I just said whatever came to mind. He always said he was proud of me, he used to call me “The Professor” and clap me on my back. I knew he was proud of me, but I wanted to promise him some things so he would know that I would keep being a man he was proud of. 

I promised him I would graduate from community college and last year, I did. I told him I would keep working hard, and I have. Maybe too hard. I also told him that my mustache would connect to my beard. I don’t know why I promised it, but I did. Today, if I grow it out really long, it looks like it connects, but it doesn’t really. There’s still a small gap between my mustache and my goatee, but you can’t really see it unless you’re paying attention. I see it sometimes, when I look in the mirror. I don’t look at myself as much as I probably should.

I have promised a lot of things to my family members that have died. Some promises I have kept, some I have not, some are yet to come. I have been watching a lot of TEDTalks about grief lately, and in this one, Tanya Villanueva Tepper says “grief is the last act of love we can give to those we loved.” So through this process of grieving, I am expressing my love for my lost family members. I am giving them the only gift I can by letting them live on through me. In this TEDTalk by Mary-Frances O’Connor, she says that the human brain acts as if the one you are grieving is still alive. You feel the space where that person should be as if they were still there, a phantom pain. To me, it’s possible that I am still thinking of them as alive when it comes to the promises I made them. No one would know that I promised them these things if I didn’t tell them, and no one would be there to hold me accountable either, but I still feel responsible for my promises. When I see that little gap on my face, it looks like a broken promise… or maybe a promise that has not yet been kept. I wonder if it ever will or I’ll be fifty years old and I’ll still look in that mirror to see that little gap.

I don’t know. 

Before my Nana passed, I promised her that I would watch over my brother and keep him safe. She always used to tell me to keep an eye on him, so when I talked to her for that last time, it was the first thing that came to mind. “I’ll watch him, I’ll keep him safe, I promise.” Early 2023, my brother got sick from a sinus infection. The infection somehow spread and began traveling to his brain. Right before he was taken to the hospital, I was on the phone with him. He told me about how he was feeling, the pressure in his head. His face was swollen and he told me he couldn’t see out of one eye. 

He told me he was scared.

I told him he would be fine. I told him the doctors would take care of him. I told him he was the strongest person I knew and this wouldn’t keep him down for long. He said goodbye and that he loved me. Then, he was gone.

I was scared too.

After he hung up, I cried. For all I knew, it could’ve been the last time I ever talked to my little brother. I cried. There was nothing I could do, yet I still felt like I wasn’t there for him. I still felt like I wasn’t protecting him. I still felt like I was breaking my promise.

In that same TedTalk, Mary-Frances starts by painting the image that someone has stolen your dining room table. You still walk around that spot as if it were there, your mind takes some time to adjust to its absence. She says it’s the same with grief. To me, it felt like my Nana was watching me in that moment. I don’t think she was there, but if she was, she would have been saying that it was alright, that I couldn’t watch my brother every single moment of every day. And she would have been right. I’ve had to learn to let my brother go, to let him make mistakes as he grows but to always be there when he needs me. I had to realize that we can’t hold ourselves responsible for what we can’t control. I have to be ok if my mustache never completely connects.

They opened up his head and (from what I understand) drained the infection out. They closed him back up and gave him medicine. I saw him after the surgery. They had put humongous staples in his head. He resembled a twisted version of Frankenstein’s monster. It was shocking to see him. Even disregarding the staples, he appeared to have lost a hundred pounds in less than a week. He looked so small, so vulnerable, so young. Yet, he kept cracking jokes and complaining—he hated being in the hospital but his joking and complaining kept him sane.

It would take a lot more than that to keep my brother down.

I’ve been listening to a lot of TEDTalks about grief and, for me, I think it’s more useful than academic papers. I’m able to listen as I work, which is a plus, but I also find it much more helpful to listen to a brain surgeon talk about her own experience with grief than to read a scientific paper about grief. In this TEDTalk by Lisa Keefauver, at about ten minutes in, she says, “You can grieve anyone at any phase of their life… including versions of yourself.” That’s pretty interesting to think about, especially in the context of my last two posts.

I never expected that “grief” would be where I’d find myself stuck at, but that’s where I am. I guess we’ll see where this takes me.

See you Monday.