How I Became Me Chapter 14

Time seemed to heal our hearts a bit after the death of our father. Though our family was touched by tragedy before this was the first time it hit us so close to our immediate family members. We all grieved in different ways and it still feels fresh at times but we are raised to believe that there is another journey after this one is over so we are left to believe that our father has reunited with family that we lost before. My father’s father and mother died of cancer. What would have been our oldest sister Brenda died when she was an infant, my mother’s father died way before the rest of us were born, she lost a brother that me and Pete were named after, so death has hovered over our lives for quite some time. Death has always been my greatest fear and as it rapidly approaches my immediate life I still struggle with the fear of the end. There is that part of me I was raised to believe in, that we all connect in the afterlife, but there is that part of me that finds something like that hard to believe. It’s a constant struggle but I try to love life more than I fear death. Though that tragedy changed my heart, it didn’t make my relationship with Eugene better. We still had our moments of failure, and then we would have moments we stuck strong together. After stepping back into our lives after accepting the loss of our father we were struck with another tragedy. Our mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctor said it was a rare form of lung cancer and they were going to do the best they could to treat her. In our past experience with cancer we’ve never stepped away the victors so we embraced what we had to face in our future. I made more and more trips home to be there for my mom at every moment I could. When she was in the hospital we would come and sit with her. I had to make her eat; I had to make sure that she kept up her strength. My sisters Tammy and Peggy were constantly by her side. They constantly got on the nurses that were responsible for her wellbeing while she was a patient. Eventually the shock wore off and taking care of her became routine and nothing stressful entered into the equation. Not long after it seemed that we were all working together the division that had been brewing between my siblings came to a head. Peggy wasn’t speaking to Tammy because of some issues involving who would take care of our mom. Our sister Tammy moved our mom in with her and had her friends helping. Peggy felt that Tammy was disrespectful, sneaky, and only doing what she was doing to prevent her from stepping up and helping. Tammy and Peggy have always had fallouts and then they would become thick as thieves. The negativity about their union is once they are on good terms everyone around them is prey. It sounds ridiculous but it is very true. They can’t get along unless they are attacking someone else. So our mom being sick didn’t change the cycle, if anything it only made it worse. Drama never ceased, there were arguments, fights, allegations of money being taken from our mom, our brother Mitch was accused by Tammy at filing our mother on his and his wife’s taxes. It was said they pocketed the money and didn’t look out for Tammy when Tammy was the one taking care of our mom full time. On one of what would be a final trip for a sibling, we were coming to get the results of our mother’s progress with her chemotherapy. While we were there Tammy called and told Rick about the tax issue which enraged Rick. Our youngest brother Arnold’s birthday was that night so we decided to not mention the tax issue until later. While at our brother Arnold’s party Mitch called to wish him a happy birthday. After finishing their conversation Rick asked to speak to Mitch. They instantly flew into an argument which ended with Mitch cursing Rick out and hanging up on him. That next day we went to the doctor’s office at the cancer center to discuss our mom’s diagnoses. The news was not good at all. The doctor stated that the rare lung cancer our mother had was advanced and it wasn’t much more they could do but put her on hospice care and try their best to make her comfortable. It was Mitch, Peggy, Tammy, Pete, and me. No one could compose themselves to talk to the doctor so I mustered the strength to represent for our mom. I asked several questions, asked if there were any other options, and there was a firm no to every question I could ask. So at that moment we accepted what was and just believed that if GOD had a hand in it things would be all right. After leaving the cancer center we came over to Tammy’s house where she told Rick not to worry about the issue anymore. That angered me because she was the cause of the argument. Tammy knew that Rick would take up for her because of the fact she was taking care of our mom and it was wrong for Mitch to file her on his taxes when he wasn’t doing anything for her. What Rick and I put together later was that Mitch must have given Tammy money so she dropped the issue and wanted us to do the same. That night before we left to head back to Atlanta Mitch and Rick did not speak a word to one another. Shortly after coming back from that draining trip Rick started saying he wasn’t feeling well. Normally around the change of the season Rick experienced sinus issues, it ran in the family so when they got sick from that it seemed like they had the flu. It went on for about two weeks or so. One night Rick called me as soon as I got home and asked if I could get him some grape juice and crutches. He said the other day he was walking downstairs and slipped at the bottom step. Rick was always bruising his self from cooking, walking, moving things, you name it…it happened to Rick. So I jumped in the car and told Eugene to put my dinner up until I got back. I drove to Walgreen’s and bought Rick some grape juice and crutches. When I got to his place I tried using my key but I couldn’t get the door open. I called out to Rick and he told me to push the door. I tried pushing the door and it wouldn’t budge. I started getting scared and I called out to him again to tell him that the door would not open; he told me that nothing was wrong with the door and that I just needed to push harder. After about two more tries the door finally opened. Rick had stacked boxes on the other side of the door. I guess he set them there for extra protection since he lived alone. When I entered his apartment I noticed how untidy it was and that was not like Rick at all. Rick couldn’t sit down for 5 minutes to relax and talk. Every time we hung out together I would get his back or his side profile because he was constantly cooking, tidying up, and cleaning up. I got use to it because I knew that it was part of his nature. He got that trait from our mom but he had it much worse. I turned on the light and started picking things up to make it look less cluttered. I noticed liquid on the floor and Rick said it was from him trying to eat and drink, he threw up clear liquid. I immediately got terrified because I never saw Rick in this condition before. I asked if he felt like eating now and he said he couldn’t get out of bed. So I got some food heated up for him, I made him some grape juice and I fed him as much as he could take. He said he was full by the fourth helping and then said he was feeling like the food was staying down. I started cleaning up and looking away to keep him from seeing the fear in my eyes. I felt so helpless but I knew that Rick would not tell me if it was more than it was. So I asked him if he needed me to take him to the hospital. Rick said that if he wasn’t feeling better by the morning he would call me and I could take him then. We started talking about other things, he asked me about my relationship with Eugene, he wanted to know if I was going to stay with him or not, then we started talking about Desperate Housewives. Before I knew it, it felt like he was getting his spirits up and I wasn’t as scared as I was before. I felt that maybe he was still hurting from the fallout between him and Mitch. I made up my mind that I would call Mitch to square things between the two of them. We had enough going on with our mom being sick and having this tension wasn’t helping us at all. Right before I left I asked if Rick needed anything else, he said he was fine and picked at me for getting on him to eat like I did my mom. We laughed and I gave him several kisses on his face and a tight hug around his neck. I told him I loved him and I was coming over the next day regardless if he called me or not. When I got to the door I cut his light off and left the kitchen light on so he could see in his apartment. Rick called out to me, “I love you.” I turned and said, “I love you to and I’ll see you tomorrow.” Little did I know, it would be the last time I got to say anything to my brother, my best friend, my confidant, my twin...and my life would never be the same afterwards.