Tragedy

I grew up with 2 brothers. 1 younger and 1 older. I am the middle child and the only girl. My oldest brother is 1 year and 1 month older than I and my younger brother is 1 year and 1 month younger than me.

For the most part, we were very close growing up. But, with a dysfunctional family, parents and relatives often tried pitting us against each other.

I, being the only girl and did well in school, my brothers thought I was a favorite. I know my dad always wanted a boy, so I thought my older brother was a favorite. My younger brother, however, got some raw deal from my dad. I think my younger brother might have had some learning disabilities that were not yet discovered at those times. My father constantly berated and picked on him. Even physical abuse and embarrassment were unleashed upon him.

As his older sister, I felt very protective of him. Altho, he looked up to my older brother, I think my younger brother and I were closest.

No matter where we lived or what relative we lived with, we always stayed in touch. He often called or came to see me as an adult to just talk. He didn’t have an easy life and didn’t get the care and guidance he needed growing up. I think he often felt like a throwaway child. So as an adult he was winging it. He was the sweetest, kindest, most sensitive person you could ever know.

And as he grew up more and more horrible things would happen. He was molested by an adult male he met. He was put in jail for breaking into a building to have a place to sleep. He was 16. He would spend several years in jail for that.

After that, he wasn’t the same. He grew jaded. I still saw that scared boy in him, his whole life. He never drank because our father was an alcoholic. He smoked pot and could never hold a job very long.

In his 30’s after 2 failed relationships and 2 kids. He got married and they had 2 more kids. It turns out that the 2 kids from that marriage that he was raising even after the split, weren’t even biologically his. She had cheated.

He met another girl. They were not good for each other at all, from the get-go. Just no good. She was younger and despite, they had a son together. After many years, they decided to relocate and start over. He started 2 businesses. She said she wanted to go to school for real estate. So he said ok. The school she wanted to go to was a couple of hours away. She would go and come home on weekends while he worked and had the kids.

It didn’t last long before she came up with excuses to not come home. He would beg her to come home. The kids wanted to see her. It turns out, she stopped going to school and was gambling and staying with some guy.

My brother was devastated. He pleaded that he just wanted the family together. He would do what it took. He started going to church and stopped smoking pot in hopes she would follow suit.

She would laugh and make fun of him and tell him she didn’t want him. Then she was asking him to buy her a car, he said anything, just come home. But, she had no intention of staying. I saw the back and forth of her taunting him on Facebook messages later on.

She informed him that she was now pregnant with this other man’s child and he said he would raise the child with her. She said she wanted to stay with the other guy.

He would call and be so distraught asking what I thought. What could he do to get her back? I told him that I thought he should see a doctor to talk about the depression of it all. Being his sister, he deserved better. I told him that.

July 4th weekend 2014. They talked in Facebook messages about the car. He said come home for the holiday and see the kids. He would buy her a car. He picked her up and at this time only the 2 youngest kids were living at home 5 yrs old and 13. They did some fireworks and then he apparently brought her into the basement bedroom and tied her to the bed.

I don’t know every detail except that the 14-year-old knew, she had seen her in the room. He would go in the room and my brother and his wife would fight. I am guessing her antagonizing him and he just snapped. He beat her up. I think being pregnant and the physical abuse killed her. Later that night, he carried her up to the master bedroom and put her in the bed. He gave the kids some over the counter melatonin to fall asleep. He then put the kids in bed. He thought they were asleep. The youngest was. He sat at the foot of the bed crying and said he wasn’t going back to jail. The 14-year-old later told me. He took out a gun, put it in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

I found out the next day on Facebook when their 18 year old posted about it. My daughter woke me and said “I think you need to see this on Facebook, I think something is wrong with your brother.” I was shocked. Sick to my stomach. This person who took years of abuse and neglect would have never hurt a soul. He loved his kids. He loved her.

I do not condone what he did at all. But, I miss him terribly. The brother I knew. It took me a little bit of time to realize this and say it. My brother committed suicide…And…he committed murder.

I will never understand it, ever. None of us, including the kids, hate him for it. He wasn’t a murderer… until he became one.

Then November 3rd, 2018. I came home from work and received a card in the email from my mother. Odd, I thought, it’s not a holiday. It was a goodbye card, telling me she loved me. To understand. She mailed it that day and then she and my stepfather of 35 years took some sleeping pills. I called the local police in their state and they found them dead, holding each other in bed. They were dealing with failing health and didn’t want to be separated for care. They felt defeated.

How am I still here, trying to cope with all this? How could I possibly tell people? The judging faces? Will they think something is wrong with me too?

To hold it all in is such a burden. It makes the pain even harder to bear. So, I am sharing it here because I know others who have dealt with such tragedies and we are not alone. Sadly, there will be more people like us left behind. You are not alone. This was my family. Things that happened I never thought would happen, in a bazillion years. I loved them.

I am trying to make sense of it all. But, for now, I am still grieving.