It’s been two weeks since I lost my brother. And I’m still sad. A little less sad than I was a week ago but sad nonetheless. As I suppose you do when you lose a brother, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I’ve been thinking about our relationship, his life, our family, this confounding universe we live in…and I’ve been thinking about how I wish for him to be remembered. It is difficult, if not impossible, to paint an accurate picture of a person’s life and attempting to do so will inevitably leave distortions that say as much about the person painting the picture as the subject. This is especially true for a person as unique as Scott. But nonetheless I’ve had this nagging desire the past few days to share with everyone my perspective on his life, to help others see what made him so special, and perhaps my perspective combined with others’ can paint a fuller picture of his life.
Because Scott was nine years older, we didn’t have the typical sibling relationship. The fights and rivalries common to brothers didn’t exist for us and at times he seemed as much a parent as a brother. Along with my oldest brother, Kirk, he babysat me and he drove me places. Scott taught me how to swim and he taught me how to ride a bike, and he taught me my first chords on the guitar. (A, E, and D for anyone wondering.) He often offered the emotional support of a parent too. When I was in the 2nd grade I remember being distraught over our family’s upcoming move from Dayton to Cincinnati and how he tried to cheer me up by convincing me how much I’d like my new school and our new house and how I’d meet so many new friends (even though in retrospect he was probably more heartbroken and anxious about the move than I was.)
As I got older Scott became my barometer for what was cool and what wasn’t. He taught me that Revolver is in fact the best Beatles album and that the Replacements and the Minutemen are much cooler than Bon Jovi and Motley Crue. My adoration for my big brother ended up shaping my sensibilities, instilling in me a preference for the offbeat and weird over the normal. And he was a hell of a basketball player. One of my proudest moments as a little brother was during a pickup game of basketball during my 9th grade year when the star player on our high school team had to guard Scott because nobody else could stop him that day. In short, I idolized the guy and thought he was the coolest person on the planet.
My brother also suffered from mental illness. This is a fact that gets skirted around in his obituaries and eulogies and family remembrances but it’s a fact you need to understand to understand his life. In his twenties Scott began to change. At first his personality became much more withdrawn and depressive. And he began to abuse drugs and alcohol. At the time my family blamed his substance abuse for his personality change (and some probably still do) but I’m convinced now the drugs and alcohol were less a cause of his problems than a symptom, that he was self-medicating to handle the demons taking over his brain.
Around the time I headed to college Scott’s personality changed even more drastically. I’ll never forget visiting him one weekend home from school. As I approached his house I heard a loud conversation inside. When he opened the door to greet me I was confused because I didn’t see anyone else in his living room. “Who’s in there?” I asked. “Nobody,” he said. “But who were you just talking to?” The awkward and embarassed look on his face as he ignored my question was all I needed to know and the realization washed over me. He had been talking to himself.
Gradually he developed a strange manner of speaking, higher in pitch than before and inappropriately loud at times. (This voice is hard to describe in words but if you knew Scott you know exactly what I’m talking about.) He began talking to himself even more, obsessing over strange things, wearing odd clothes. Then in the summer of 1994, left alone while the rest of our family was away for the July 4 holiday, Scott suffered what was later described by his doctors as a psychotic break. I won’t go into the details but Scott was hospitalized afterwards and it was at this time he was diagnosed with schizotypal personality disorder.
Scott would never be the same person he was before his mental illness took over. Once a fantastic basketball player he now could barely make it up and down the court. Once an accomplished drummer he stopped playing altogether and sold his drumset. Holding a normal conversation with him became difficult. Those of us who knew him well quickly learned his curcuitous ways of talking, realized he often spoke metaphorically rather than literally, and could communicate with him in his beautifully unique way. But for many, especially those just meeting him, making a human connection through conversation became near impossible.
Scott’s mental illness would make the remaining 25 years of his life extremely difficult. Developing close relationships was hard and he spent much of his time alone. Things like paying bills and keeping his appartment clean were difficult as well, and obtaining anything more than a menial job became impossible, despite his holding a college degree. The vicious cycle of alcoholism also became worse in these years, leading to a number of health problems that ultimately killed him.
In some ways I feel like we buried two people last week, the person Scott was in his first 25-30 years and the person he was in the final 25-30. It’s easy to look back on his life and celebrate who he was when he was young and ignore the person he became, but doing so does a disservice to his life. The person he became in the last half of his life was just as lovable, just as fun, and just as good a brother as he ever was. It was just harder to notice it through the veil of his mental illness.
In many ways Scott offered blessings in his later years he never would have been able to offer before. Always a kind soul, Scott became even more sensitive and gentle in his later years, a quality that made him a fantastic uncle to my kids, and the off-the-wall tangents he’d frequently go on would usually contain keen insights, both hilarious and profound. My favorite part of Christmas each year was seeing what presents Scott gave everyone. His gifts were often bizarre, like when he gave me a tub of homemade moisturizing lotion or when he gave my mom a DVD of the movie Drumline, but his gifts were always so thoughtful and reflected his desire to give you something you’d really appreciate. The Scott of his later years was the most unique person I’ve ever known, a true one-of-a-kind, and so much fun to be around.
The unfairness of the hand Scott was dealt compared to the one I was dealt is something I’ve dwelt on frequently over the years and at times it has haunted me. Why did the person who brought me so much happiness and shaped my life in innumerable ways have to live such an unhappy life and face so many hardships? Why did someone with such a good heart have so much trouble navigating the challenges of this cruel world? Why have I, the beneficiary of so many of Scott’s gifts, had such an easier time with life? I suppose these questions will continue to haunt me from time to time and I suppose there are no good answers. But for now I take some comfort in knowing his suffering is over and my memories of him will be a source of joy for as long as I live.
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