Jamie

Weinstein

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March 10, 2009

Life and Loss a Decade Later: Remembering Brett Harris Weinstein

This Friday, March 13, will mark the 10th anniversary of the passing of my brother, Brett Weinstein. It was a spring day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where my brother had relocated to await a lung transplant. The weather outside was pleasant, but inside an Intensive Care Unit my brother was losing his 20-year battle with the genetic killer Cystic Fibrosis.

How difficult it was to see him in that condition. I had seen him in terrible straits before, but never so lifeless, never so incapacitated, never so helpless, with a ventilator implanted down his throat enabling him to breathe. Five years my senior, my brother was the person who I looked up to. The person I wanted to be like. The person I still wish to emulate.

But there he was nearly motionless, his health rapidly deteriorating. I knew eventually that Cystic Fibrosis would almost certainly take his life, but I never really thought the day would come. Either through a miracle of God or a breakthrough of medical science (or both), I convinced myself that he would be cured. Besides, CF patients were living longer and even if his lungs failed, a lung transplant could prolong his life. Yet there my brother lay.

What a cruel and unfair twist of fate that my brother would be stricken with such a hellish disease and I, who came from the same father and mother, would be as healthy as one could hope for.  Where is the justice in that?

When remembering my brother, I think back to the happy times more than the sad times. The times where my brother and I concocted imaginary games to play with each other when we were young, or our afternoon basketball matches we competed in after the school day finished, or the occasions where he made me laugh as he so effortlessly could. 

When my mind wanders, I also contemplate what might have been had he lived. I am 25 today and he would have been 30. I imagine how we would have faced the world together as grownups. I think of how he would offer me advice on the world as older brothers do. Perhaps we would have spent holidays together and ultimately, as the years went by, we would both have families and our respective children would play together like we did when we were younger. But this will never be and I suppose it was never meant to. 

Time is a strange thing. It doesn’t heal all wounds as they say, but it does make them become more distant, less resonant as the years pass. A decade travels by faster than one might imagine, and though I think about him every day, it is hard to believe that it has been a decade since I last saw my brother’s face in person or since I last touched his skin and felt his embrace.

But I must confess this isn’t entirely true. Every now and then in the twilight of the night, in the silence of the darkness, when I lay my head down to sleep I awake into a different world. It is a dream world where my brother is with me, his disease has been lifted, and he is healthy. Deep in my consciousness, I know it is just a dream, but to me it is a moment as real as any other.

I tend to believe that these dreams are not unique to me. I suspect they are common to many who have lost someone very close to them. They are dreams that go un-talked about. A special secret kept by the dreamer that is not shared with the world. They have the awkward characteristic of being both sour and sweet. Sour, because they remind you just how much you miss your loved one. Sweet, because they are the only venue where you can still be with them.

While Brett’s life was short, in some way it was one of extremes. While he experienced more pain in his short life than most do in a lifetime, he also experienced more love than most of us will if we live to 100. This may be momentarily comforting, but it does not cover the reality that he had so much more to live, so much more to give to this world. That he was taken so early is a loss to us all, not only a loss in smiles to those who knew him best, but a real loss to all of those who will now not benefit from the great deeds and contributions to this troubled world my brother most assuredly would have provided.

There is no easy answer for why bad things happen in a world created by a just God. Humanity will forever be asking questions like how could God allow the Holocaust to occur? I may add, why would God allow an innocent boy like my brother to suffer so much and die so early?

None of us can really answer these questions and those who pretend to have answers just make themselves look foolish. These are questions that are above our capacity as humans to adequately understand and will only be explained when we come face to face with our Creator. 

On this anniversary, however, I try to be thankful rather than despondent. How fortunate am I, after all, that Brett was my brother and that I had the pleasure of knowing him for 15 long years. 

Like each year that has passed since my brother’s death, baseball great Mike Schmidt will be running a fishing tournament and auction in support of Cystic Fibrosis in Brett’s memory this May in Jupiter, Florida. Anyone interested in more information should go to:  http://www.mikeschmidtevents.com/home.htm

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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