I Must Stay and You Must Go

Leave It Alone - Moist

Fate has the ability to take something away from you and leave you absolutely powerless to do anything about it. Fate can be cruel, fate can be beautiful. Fate can put you in that spot at that perfect moment in time when you will meet and connect with your soul mate. Fate can also take your world and shake it up like an ant in a jar and leave you dizzy with fear and alone to pick up the pieces. You want to put the tattered shreds of your life back together again but it's unrecognizable. Fate and I are not exactly on speaking terms. Fate has scattered the parts of me all over the highway and left me alone to die. In many ways I made decisions on my life before fate had a chance to intervene, I stopped the hurt before it could catch me. Sometimes I was successful but I will never know if I ran before the sun could shine down on me. Admittedly I was a little gun shy.


A lifetime ago - 28 years - my brother Ron passed away in a hospital in Thunder Bay Ontario. He was 21 years old and had been battling Hodgkins Lymphoma since he was 9 years old. With Ron's passing, I was officially the last surviving member of my family of 6 and I was 22 years old. It was not a title I wanted hoisted onto my shoulders. Fate had other plans. In a very bizarre way, however, Ron's death was easier to deal with because I knew it was coming and I had plenty of prior experience dealing with having the heart and soul being ripped from me. But on the other hand it was and is a lot harder because I had the tiniest glimpse of the kind of man that he could have become. I had time to get used to him being a part of my life. I had the opportunity to get to know him as more than just an annoying kid brother. 

Ron is a person who I have elevated to stand proud atop a pedestal while I gaze in awe from below. He didn't make it well known and downplayed it when the subject came up, my brother was a true hero. By definition a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds - Ron was not a man but a child of 11 years, nor was he recognized for his courage. But he should have been! In the seconds following the horrific and deadly accident that befell the family on March 21st, Ron was able to find his way out of the burning wreckage that had been flipped onto it's rooftop. Ignoring danger to himself, he returned to the blazing hot metal shell to offer his help. Trying to comprehend what had happened and what to do, I felt a tugging on my sock and it was pulled off. The tugging continued until I was able to squirm my way out. In the darkness of the night fueled only by the brilliant orange flames, my brother showed me the way out and pulled me to safety. And he wasn't done, he was on his way back having gotten me a safe distance when emergency personnel arrived and stopped him. Even they recognized the danger in his heroism but it was quickly forgotten in the enormity of the tragedy that the light of day showed. 

I have no right to be called strong because compared to my brother I am but a wet piece of spaghetti

Again in the months before he died, Ron let go of the burden he carried on his shoulders and focused his attention on the well-being of me. Of course, hindsight having 20-20 vision, I realized that he knew his end was near. After more than 10 years of battling the cancer demon that would rear its ugly head with no warning and suck a little more life out of him, he was tired. I bore the scars of the tragedy our family had endured for the world to see and question - Ron, was like you - on the outside but hurting on the inside. No one knew how much it hurt to be a young boy sick and without his mother. No one knew that he had given up the fight to live - except his doctors. No one knew he had quit treatments that might have prolonged his life. No one knew the futility he felt trying to hold down a part-time job at McDonalds only to be let go because of his frequent absences for treatments. No one knew the hassles he had at school because he was away so much because he was sick. He carried so much weight upon his shoulders. He never told me how scared he was that he could never hold down a job because staying healthy required so much of his time. It was a different time then. In the 1970's and 1980's a child growing up with cancer was more of an anomaly, today you would be given every consideration to pursue treatments at your workplace or school. Not then, not for him. And although the guardian grandparents were much more supportive of him than I, they were a sorry substitute for the compassion and loving nature of our mother. With her, we may have both seen a brighter future. 


But it is what it is. Fate. And I can't change that but I can mourn my loss and wonder what it might have been to have a hero and friend like my brother in my life today. For no matter how much time passes, thoughts of Ron will always bring tears to my eyes and my heart aches like it was yesterday that I said Goodbye. The world was a richer place for having him in it and a lot emptier and sadder without his grace. I have memories that will never dim with thoughts of Ron - I wish you all had the same opportunity to know him.

Snows of New York - Chris De Burgh

One more note on the subject of my brother. In the last days of his life, he became very moved by the poem Footprints in the Sand. He found a lot of comfort in the words. I feel a similar tug at my heartstrings in the word penned and sung by Chris De Burgh.

"In my dreams we walked, you and I to the shore,

Leaving footprints by the sea,

And when there was just one set of prints in the sand, 

That was when you carried me;

You have always been such a good friend to me,

Though the thunder and the rain,

And when you're feeling lost in the snows of New York,

Lift your heart and think of me;"

Thank you to my brother, Ron who always walks by my side and shines a light to guide me when I feel lost...