If he had lived, my younger brother Simon would have been seventy years old today - but he died on July 19th 2022 at the age of 67. I wrote a poem in his memory on the evening of his passing. Let me share it with you again...
⦿
Song for Simon
No more
Wood pigeons cooing
Morse coded messages
From the ridge tiles
Nor painted ladies
Shimmying through open windows -
Fluttering like tiny Bhutanese prayer flags.
No more the dark two a.m.
Wondering who I am
Recalling paths unfollowed,
Regrets twinkling
Like distant stars.
No more struggling for breath
Or cowering in the shade of death.
It’s over.
No more plans
And no more schemes,
No more
Elusive butterfly dreams.
Your words are destined to stay unsaid
Now that you have joined the dead.
No more…
No more.
⦿
Looking back almost four years now... His was not the happiest of lives. He lived in the shadows of who he might have been. His mind was significantly affected by smoking weed and cannabis resin. Always a cigarette smoker. at times he also drank too much and his attitude to the world and people beyond his door was filled with scorn because Simon always knew best. I was often the convenient recipient of his venom.
He made my mother's life a misery. He kept returning to her like a bad penny. She was often afraid of him and his weird moods. He could be very aggressive and said horrible things to her. Sometimes she barricaded her bedroom door - wedging a chair against the door handle in case he came into her bedroom in the middle of the night. But she was his mother and in spite of everything she was there for him. She considered it her maternal duty.
For about seven years - between the ages of 28 and 35, Simon had a relationship with a local woman called Linda. Shirley and I liked her a lot. Linda was the best thing that ever happened to Simon. They bought a little house together in Hornsea on the North Sea coast and for a while he seemed like a changed man. I might even dare to say that he was happy... briefly.
But then the nastiness started up again. This time targeted not at my mother but at Linda. She also became afraid of him and very sadly, they split up. The little house was sold and despite my protestations, Simon moved back in with my mother.
She should have been living out her days as a merry widow but instead my monstrous brother was back to torment her, belittle her, criticise her cooking, yell at her, steal her money. It was awful and during that time she would often come over to Sheffield to stay with us. We gave her sanctuary and she could sleep peacefully in her bed before the inevitable journeys back home.
In spite of undiagnosed mental health issues and to his credit, Simon managed to earn wages throughout his troubled life. He was rarely out of work and eight months before his death through cancer, he was still working with a contractor who serviced the water infrastructure - maintaining small underground reservoirs and associated piping for example.
Sadly, he had already offloaded his cherished guitars. In his prime he was a great guitar player. Much better and more dedicated than me. He had real talent and patience when it came to strumming or picking but typically he cut away the rope that connected him with that joy.
Though I stopped loving him decades before he became a human skeleton, I am proud to say that I was there for him at the end. It is what my parents would have wanted.
As folk will often say tritely when death occurs... he is at peace now.
You did your best to help your brother. It's too bad he couldn't help himself.
ReplyDeleteNobody can ever tell me that cannabis will not cause psychosis because I witnessed it with my own eyes. That happy little boy in the picture got lost in the forest.
DeleteFamilies are difficult; there's the idea that you must always love them and help them and care for them, but when those things are never reciprocated, and you are treated even worse, you need to let go.
ReplyDeleteStill, good on you for being there as Simon left.
Thanks for your understanding Bob.
DeleteThat's a lovely poem. I have a similar son but he has managed to get sober. I still keep him at a distance though. Your poor mum, but I'm glad you and Shirley were there for her. I imagine he broke her heart a lot. I hope he is a peace now.
ReplyDeleteShe was a tough, resilient woman who had known poverty, war, stillbirths and her parents' separation but Simon nearly broke her in two - such was the pain of his presence.
Deletehttps://www.cbc.ca/radio/whitecoat/cannabis-induced-psychosis-bad-trip-1.7116217
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Pixie. Simon also heard voices. Usually it was God who has never, ever spoken to me because he does not exist.
DeleteOh Neil, to see that gorgeous, smiling, shining eyed little boy and then to know what became of all that potential as he grew is so, so sad… and sorrowfully it’s a pattern that is repeated time and time again. Aristotle may have said, “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man”, but he didn’t account for the external influences of drugs and mental health, and how very, very hard it must have been for your mum to see one of her babies come to this. Your tenaciousness in not abandoning him was admirable and, who knows, maybe, just maybe, something of yours and Shirley’s kindness touched a place deep inside him when he came close to death, but sometimes we just have to accept that the situation is what it is, and your beautiful words say so much. Be gentle with yourself as you think of him on what should, in a hundred other scenarios, have been a day of celebration. Simon missed so much.
ReplyDeleteSo lovely to hear from you again dear Elizabeth and I thank you for your kind and indeed wise reflections.
DeleteZounds ! Such writing ! You opened the family door. Wide.
ReplyDeleteSimon is at peace now or so I hope. Why is that trite ?
When I hear of a believer who has died I say, *He's with the Lord Jesus now.*
" at peace now" is a hackneyed notion in the field of dying.
DeleteHackneyed in a poem or prose but not in thought or conversation.
DeleteI dream about my dead brothers and they are not at all at peace.
Brian hardly visits me in dreams and won't answer any of my questions.
George the elder brother, who lived in Los Angeles for many years and
hated it, is a most turbulent and violent ghost, quite different from Brian.
Neither had supernatural faith.
George at the end said he was starting to think the Devil existed.
A heartfelt tribute to a brother whose personality was sad to say the least. Families are what they are and your mother was always there for him, as were you, so that should give comfort.
ReplyDeleteTo some extent it really does Thelma. At least my mother could always confide in me with absolute frankness.
DeleteIt is a beautiful poem, Neil. It's very sad that your brother went astray, but pretty amazing that he managed to keep on working. You did your best - you could do no more.
ReplyDeleteI gave his eulogy at the funeral and I made a point of mentioning that he had managed to keep working - pretty much up to the end. It was an amazing achievement.
DeleteThe old adage - you can't choose your family - springs to mind. My uncle was like that in our family. Always a troubled soul and a prodigal son who always got spoiled when he returned home with his tail between his legs, before he had yet another row with my paternal grandmother and disappeared for a few years again. You can only do what you can do in those circumstances and can at least feel you did all you could.
ReplyDeleteSome people live on the edge - at the very boundaries of acceptability.
DeleteI have no brothers or sisters but if i could have one, I'd choose you. X
ReplyDeleteI would hold your hand and walk you down to the park to feed the ducks.
DeleteYou certainly did your best for him, as did your mother. That's all anyone could expect. Do you think he perhaps had latent mental health issues anyway, and was self-medicating with the cannabis? In other words, while cannabis no doubt exacerbated his illness, maybe there was an underlying problem as well? What do you think?
ReplyDeleteI knew him when he was a happy-go-lucky boy, the baby of our family and there were never any signs of mental health issues. I am as certain as I can be about anything that it was smoking drugs that changed him.
DeleteYou are a Good Man, Neil.
ReplyDeleteI try. It's in my bones Graham.
DeleteI think I understand your sentiments. Family can be tough.
ReplyDeleteI just feel sorry for Simon. His work ethic says he wasn't all bad and who knows what demons he battled.
There were demons - that is for sure Kylie. At times it seemed as though the entire world was wrong but not Simon... oh no, not him.
DeleteA sad story. Sad for Simon, sad for your mum, and sad for you. Your poem says so much. I have a son named Simon. I've always loved the name.
ReplyDeleteSimon is the purity in "Lord of the Flies".
DeleteHarsh on yourself to say you stopped loving Simon. The poem (one of your better ones imo) and this post say otherwise. Liking him, as he had become, on the other hand...and I'm sure you hated him with a pretty deep rage when he made your mother's life a misery.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your intelligent reflections Marcellous. Appreciated - as always.
DeleteSo sad that his mental health issues were not diagnosed and addressed. A sign of that times, hopefully better these days.
ReplyDeleteWithout weed and cannabis resin I have no doubt that his mental health would have been just fine.
DeleteI remember your comments on Simon. It was a very sad situation where innocent people are trapped. You've written a very powerful poem.
ReplyDeleteWeed is a queer drug. It can have no effect beyond getting stoned for some people yet seriously damage the mental health of others. There is a certain recreational drug that makes gay men want to love and straight men want to fight. Drugs have some odd effects at times. My minimal experience with them when I was young was all good.
ReplyDeleteYou can be proud that you did what you did for your parents, and it is very hard to believe Simon died nearly four years ago.