Chris and I chatted on the phone tonight after I went to dance class at the gym. We have been talking every day for the past several months, ever since it became clear that my Dad was not getting any better and that he would be dying soon. I don't even remember when that happened.
Maybe I do. Maybe it was when the Doctor told my Mother that my Dad had to go to hospice. That was April 1, 2012.
During the course of this journey, I have been pretty ok with the fact that my Brother hasn't been around. He has been around a lot, as much as he can. He has come three times in the past 2 1/2 months. Yes, he is not living here and I am dealing with everything. But I haven't really felt resentment. There have been a few times where it did seem like he had his life going on and I had to deal with Dad, but that's before we knew he was dying. And I nipped that in the bud. I told my Brother straight out that I was starting to be resentful and we dealt with it. Whenever we talk now, I don't feel like my Brother is being pulled in a million directions. Even if we only have five minutes to talk, I feel like I'm his for that five minutes. And I don't call during dinner or when he's trying to put the kids to sleep.
It's not like I never considered how he was feeling about all of this. But it just seemed like he was working hard to keep his emotions in check. Today he told me that he has been sad and low for the past few days. It's not the first time I knew it was affecting him, but it's the first time we really talked about it directly. He said that his wife is there for him, but that she doesn't really know what it's like. I feel the same way about The Drummer. He loves me and he supports me. But sometimes he talks about my Father's death like we're trying to solve an equation. X does not Equal Y squared over 8. But he tries. And he is there to hold me and love me. That's enough. But no one, except my friends who have lost parents, really understand what this is like. And that's okay. I wouldn't want them to know what it was like and there is no way I could explain it to them. Like an inside joke, a very bad inside joke, you just had to be there.
But for the first time, I was able to give him my support. And let him know that even though he's not physically here, he's here with us. When I have to talk to my Dad about what he means to us and about how Chris and I will make sure my Mother's okay, Chris will be there as much as I'm there. We are so alike and we have so many of the same values. I don't know if that ever happens with siblings. Not with any of my friends and their siblings. My Ex and his sister were from different planets, although they were both in the Gay Universe. There's usually a smart one and a dumb one. Or a cute one and an ugly one. Polar opposites. In our case, there is a short one and a tall one. I'm the tall one. But that's really the only difference. Yes I'm the Gay one and he's the Straight one. But our core values, not necessarily what we were raised believing but what we both came to on our own, are the same. I don't know how we reached a lot of the same conclusions since we are different in many surface ways. But we are kindred spirits. And it's not just because we're brothers, although I'm sure our Mother would LOVE to take credit for that. It's not that she doesn't deserve some of the credit. But our parents pitted us against each other from the get go. And eventually, we were mature enough to realize that we liked each other even though our parents pointed out how different we were.
I told Chris tonight that he was with me in the times I take care of Dad because the way that I fight for my Dad, the way that I protect him is the way that Dad thinks Chris would protect him and fight for him if he lived in LA. So that energy is there. And everything we do, as far as my Dad is concerned, is done together.
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