My Brother, My Sidekick, My Baby

by ComputerBob

November 25, 1996

Let me begin by asking you to please forgive me if I falter or cry as I read this to you. Please do not interpret any difficulty I have in reading this as an indication that I do not fully believe what I am reading. Quite the contrary: I am very much at peace with what I am about to share with you. However, I am a highly emotional person, and this is a highly emotional situation. Unfortunately, due to the responsibilities I have had to face as a result of the tragic circumstances which bring us all here today, I have not yet allowed myself the luxury of releasing my emotions, and that is what you will undoubtedly hear in my voice. So, now I begin:

When I was seven years old, my mom went to the hospital and brought me home a baby. I don't remember what it looked like, but its name was "Ronnie" and from that first day I knew it belonged to me. Mom and Dad taught me how to sit and hold it on my lap. Then they showed me how to feed it a bottle. I loved feeding it. I would sweep my hand in a huge arc, and say "Here come the Jetsons!" as I brought each spoonful of baby food to its mouth. When it was banana baby food, I'd sneak a few spoonfuls of it for myself. Sometimes, more than a few spoonfuls... Sometimes, he... didn't get any... Each time I changed my baby's diapers, I was very careful to not stick it with a diaper pin. Each time we made the all-day trip to Grandma and Grandpa's house, I held my baby in my lap and rocked it in its bassinet to keep it happy. My parents were undoubtedly supervising me closely the whole time, but I never noticed. I was too busy taking care of my baby.

When Ronnie began walking, I worried that he would bump his head on the bottom of the kitchen counter, or the kitchen table. At regular intervals, I stood him up near the counter to see if he was tall enough to hit his head on it. Since he regularly ran around under both the table and the counter, I knew it was only a matter of time before he would be in incredible danger. As I had anticipated, one day, my worst fears came true. He toddled across the kitchen floor, on his way under the kitchen table, but instead slammed his forehead right into the side of the table. To my astonished relief, he simply bounced off the table, fell back onto his butt, then immediately climbed back to his feet and toddled off in another direction, as though nothing had happened.

As we both grew up, Ronnie was my sidekick. He was Tonto to my Lone Ranger. Poncho to my Cisco. Robin to my Batman. Every Saturday morning, we'd play "Liberty Bell Restaurant" in our kitchen. I owned the restaurant, named after a small Liberty Bell we had, and Ronnie was always my only customer. Every week, I'd read him the menu that I had just written on an IBM card and he'd order his breakfast. Pancakes, frozen waffles, Kellogg's Corn Flakes, Cream of Wheat. "Do you want milk or orange juice with that?" He'd sit at the table and do whatever customers do while they're waiting for their food. When I was done cooking, I'd ring the Liberty Bell and announce the details of his order before serving it to him. Then I'd make something for myself and join him at the table. Looking back, I have absolutely no idea where the rest of the family was during all those Saturday mornings that Ronnie and I played "Liberty Bell Restaurant."

In 1975, when I had married and moved to Ohio, I began hearing that my twelve year-old brother Ron had started to get into trouble with a few friends from school. Minor vandalism. "Kids will be kids" type of things. We knew that he was basically a good kid and he'd be OK. At the time, we didn't know that he had already begun drinking and experimenting with drugs. That fact became increasingly clear as Ron began getting into more and more serious trouble, using and hurting us and others in the process.

For the past twenty-one years, I have watched my brother, my sidekick, my baby, ride a torturous, tormenting downward spiral of substance abuse that he was utterly powerless to control, despite many, many sincere efforts on his part.

Those of us who knew him best are thankful for the joys we were able to share with Ron. Those of us who knew him best know that the Ron was an extremely sensitive, compassionate, caring and loving man who spent his entire adult life trying to be the man that God wanted him to be. We know that we all make mistakes. None of us can claim to have always done what God wanted us to do. However, those of us who, like Ron, have spent time in the dark, lonely depths of despair, know that, due to the nature of Ron's illness, he felt inexpressible and irreconcilable remorse and self-condemnation each time he succumbed to the siren song of the addictions that constantly shadowed him and caused him to hurt those whom he loved. Those of us who, like Ron, have spent time in the dark, lonely depths of despair, have known for many years that a tragic day like today was a possibility in Ron's life. Those of us who knew him best know that, in the past few months, Ron came to a fuller realization of the consequences of his condition, and did everything he was capable of doing to try to reconcile with those he had hurt and with those whom he felt had hurt him in the past. Those of us who knew him best grieve for the loss of his innocence. Those of us who knew him best grieve for the loss of his incredible potential. Those of us who knew him best still love him and know that he loved us. Those of us who knew him best forgive Ron for every bit of pain he ever caused us.

One of my favorite songs contains the following lyrics:

"Life is hard; the world is cold.
We're barely young and then we're old.
But every fallen tear is always understood.
Life is hard, but God is good."

I believe that our Lord Jesus Christ, in His infinite love and mercy, has always known Ron's heart, has always understood Ron's struggles, and has already forgiven him and welcomed him into the Kingdom of God. I miss Ron terribly, but I know I will see him at our next family reunion, in a much better place.

UPDATE: The suicide of a loved one is something that you learn to live with, but you never really "get over." While the nails have been removed, the nail holes remain. My eulogy for my little brother, is called My Brother, My Sidekick, My Baby. One year after his suicide, I wrote a letter to him called There's No Such Thing As A Good-Looking Corpse. Two years after his suicide, I wrote a cautionary tale for children about him, titled My Little Brother, Ten years after his suicide, when I finally felt like I understood both his life and his death a little better, I wrote Rest In Peace,