How I Spent My Christmas Vacation - Remembering My Big Brother, Tom

The holidays this year were not happy.  My brother, Tom, died on Christmas Eve.  

For the past year or so, I tried to spend as much time with Tom as possible.  

The good side of that is I got to enjoy the company of my brother.  We spent hours talking and remembering our childhoods.  We talked about people we once knew and wondered what happened to them.  We sometimes just sat in silence, each staring at our cell phones.  Content in each others' company.

Alice and Tom - Summer 2014
I want to remember my brother like he was this day.

The bad side of that is I had to watch him wither away.  Unable to eat solid food for the last 14 months of his life, took its toll.  He was already thin from past health problems, but at the end he was merely a shadow of himself.  

Cancer is a terrible thing.

Christmas Eve morning, he passed peacefully after a very long illness.  I touched his shoulder after he had passed and was sad to discover just how light and small his body had become.  That is when I realized the Tom I knew had left this body behind.  The body without Tom was just a shell.  Tom himself had made that body seem large and much stronger.

Tom's personality was big.  He was a man who took care of things.  He was in charge.  If Tom was in the room, everyone always relied on him to make decisions, and he never disappointed. I didn't always agree with decisions he made, but I never questioned his right to decide.  Tom was like that.

Tom is the reason I moved to Charleston in 1995.  I knew he would be there for me if I needed him.  I knew he always had my back.  

So many people relied on Tom over the years: his tenants, his family, his friends... Tom's personality was so strong that it never occurred to anyone that he might need someone to have his back.  Although he did, of course.  His wife always had his back.  I think he possibly gained much of his strength from her.  She is a remarkable and strong woman.  His perfect mate.

I always enjoyed visiting Tom and his family.  Tom loved animals and always had all kinds of animals:  horses, goats, chickens, dogs, cats, fish, and even two huge male emus in his later years.  Homing pigeons, cockatiels, and other birds at other times.  He even had about 200 bee hives once and sold honey.  He led an interesting life.  

Tom traveled the world when he was in the US Navy, and continued to love to travel with his family until his health became so bad. But, oddly enough, he never told travel stories.  He seldom talked about places he lived other than his present home.  He tended to live in the present, and he wasn't a complainer. 

If you asked Tom, "How are you today?" He'd always answer, "Can't complain," or "Fine as frog's hair," or some such.  He always remembered to say, "I love you," and "Be good to yourself."  He was good like that.

I'm so glad I was able to spend his last few days with him and his family. It did make for a sad Christmas, but I take comfort knowing he is no longer in pain. 

Only the body dies.  That huge energy that was my brother, Tom, still lives.  That is my belief.  We will meet again.

Christmas Day this year came without my brother.  I spent the day with his family.  There was food and children and presents and love with little pockets of sadness mixed in here and there, but it was not overwhelmingly sad.  

The week after Christmas I spent some time with friends.  We saw movies and Christmas lights and went out to eat.  I took walks with my dogs.  I spent New Year's Eve alone in front of the TV doing a craft project I received as a Christmas gift, and I was okay with that.  I toasted in the New Year raising a glass of tawny port to the two brothers I lost in 2016, Tom and Howard, and to my brother, Gene, who I lost in 2002. 

New Years Day I went to church and ate good food and took the dogs on a long walk and took myself to see a movie I've been wanting to see.  It was a good day.  

Tomorrow I go back to work.  It will be the last Spring semester I work, as I plan to retire and move back closer to home and family come July 1st this year. 

Yes.  This is the beginning of a year of big life changes.  Please say a little prayer for me that all goes well.  Today I am full of hope.  That is the best way to start a New Year, I think, with hope and a prayer for happy days.