During one of the many after-midnight WalMart trips Sam and I would take, he found a five dollar bill in the parking lot. "Holy shit!" Sam exclaimed, picking it up. We both immediately began looking around, searching for anybody that might be walking around, eyes low to the ground, five dollars light in pocket. The parking lot was a graveyard, and Sam seemed disappointed, then asked what he should do with the money. It took me little thought to realize that the odds of him finding the one true owner of that cash were roughly zilch, so I told him he could basically do whatever he wanted with it. I probably suggested that he buy candy or chips since we planned on playing a lot of videogames that night.
Instead, Sam made a beeline for the nearest charitable donation canister he saw when we entered the store, dropped it in, and then shrugged at me. "It wasn't my money," he said.
This is the way I prefer to remember my brother. I'm not going to pretend this was Sam all the time, but there was an honesty and generosity in him that I know in my heart I will never be able to match. Sam was the kind of person who would invite a friend over to show him his most prized possessions, and if said friend made sufficient "ooohs" and "aaahs" over a particular item, Sam would offer this treasure to the friend outright. I've heard Sam ask "Do you want it?" to enough people that I can practically mimic the intonation of his voice from memory.
Five years ago on this day I was packing a box in my kitchen, desperately trying to vacate my apartment before the final day on my lease expired. When my phone rang and I saw that my mom was calling I knew the subject matter before I picked it up. There wasn't much that needed to be said, so she didn't waste a lot of breath. "It's that time," is all she said.
By the time I finally arrived home in Tyler, my brother's body was already gone - taken by a coroner in an ambulance or perhaps a van. Gone, too, were all the borrowed materials from hospice care that had kept Sam afloat during his months-long deterioration - the hospital bed, the slow I.V. drips, the various machines that searched his body for bioelectric signs and then registered lines and beeps on a screen to tell everyone that he was still around, his heart still beating. The house felt cold and empty when I walked through the door, as though my brother had possibly never existed. It was surreal.
And dark. It was impossible not to reflect on how much weight he had lost, the vision of his ribs plainly evident. It was hard not to remember the time I came to visit and he forgot my face, his eyes blankly searching mine and mistaking me for a nurse, asking me when his brother was going to arrive. It was difficult to push out memory after memory of holding a bucket while he vomited and cleaning up the mess after.
Sam was gone, and in that moment I had a cold, realistic thought: He's no longer in pain. I assumed this realization would level some form of comfort over me, but it did not.
For months afterwards I was unpredictable, though it might not have seemed so. I had moments that I felt completely manic, others when I was utterly depressed, and every shade in between. Many days it was easier not to feel anything so strongly. Over time I reached a calm, but I have never forgotten that cold, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when I walked into the house for the first time after my brother passed away.
I reflected on that this morning as I walked to the bus when I found a single dollar laying in the road. With nobody around to possibly claim it, I picked it up. On the bus there was a young woman with some handmade signs and a bucket who was on her way to set up a small fundraising drive for charity within the office where she worked. I gave her the dollar, because it wasn't my money. No resource ever is when left unused for the betterment of those around us.
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