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Health & Fitness

Giving up the Fight

A tribute to my big brother.

My brother died last month. But, in fact, we lost Bill years ago to the Parkinson’s Disease that slowly, persistently claimed him. 

My earliest memories of my big brother are, admittedly, not my most fond. Eldest of the three siblings, Bill was 12 years old when I was born. By the time I was toddling through the house, Bill, a typical teen, delighted in tormenting his baby sister. I can still see my mother running from the kitchen in response to my plaintive cries, wiping her hands on a dish towel, screaming, “Bill! You leave her alone!”

My brother never outgrew his playful nature. When we became adults and had children of our own, he kept the little ones squealing and giggling, chasing after them through the house at family gatherings. When he caught one, he grabbed them up in a big bear hug until they managed to wriggle free. 

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A gifted artist, Bill’s home was filled with his photography, oil paintings, cartoon sketches and wood carvings. His photography garnered awards at local competitions. He was commissioned by co-workers to paint family portraits. As the disease progressed, the characteristic tremor overtook his once steady hands, preventing any future additions to his body of work.

Over time, his tall, sturdy frame thinned, his joints stiffened. It wasn’t long before he could no longer walk the halls of the assisted living facility, even with the support of our brother Gary and me. We now found him in a wheelchair when we arrived for our visits.

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His ability to speak was his next challenge. It became difficult just to mumble a short sentence. Gary and I struggled to decipher Bill's words. We often found ourselves apologizing when we couldn’t understand him.

Bill's inability to participate in our conversations must have been frustrating. We began to wonder if our too infrequent visits offered any comfort for him. 

At the end of a visit around that time, Gary and I performed our usual farewell ritual – each in turn, gently squeezing our brother’s hand, telling him we loved him. I kissed him on the forehead, and we said our goodbyes.

On this day, as we turned to leave, Bill whispered, "Thanks for coming."

The level of effort it took him for this expression of gratitude spoke volumes about his caring nature.

For the last several months of Bill’s life, our visits were reduced to short, bedside conversations between Gary and me, sharing events in our lives, hoping Bill could hear us. He struggled to simply open his eyes against the increasing doses of medication.

Sometime ago, I watched an interview with Margaret Green, mother of Nicholas Green, the 7-year-old California boy who died in 1994 as the result of injuries incurred when the car his family was traveling in during a vacation in Italy was attacked by robbers.

As she sat as his bedside, watching her gravely ill son struggle to survive, helpless to ease his misery, she whispered to him that it was OK to stop fighting and to just go to sleep. She later regretted those words, and wondered if he might have lived if he hadn't given up the fight.

I would never presume to imagine what it’s like to lose a child. But I can understand her desire for her son to be at peace.

I wished that peace for my brother in the last weeks of his life. His days of entertaining the kids, producing inspiring works of art, and providing for his family were long past. We knew he would not recover. We just wanted his suffering to end.

And at last, it came time for my brother to give up the fight.

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