A Life Unfinished.

We all will experience death. But sometimes death is not what kills us. Case in point: I had an ex-brother-in-law. He had a twin brother and I was married to his older sister. During the time that I was married to his sister, I observed him graduating from high school as an athlete, starring in basketball and football. He was awarded a scholarship to play football in college. He was handsome, smart, gregarious, funny and had many friends. After he started to attend college, he began to change. He was always a little forgetful and bad with directions but only enough to make him human. When this type of behavior began to increase and other problems arose, some of us thought it was just part of his quirky personality. Then, he began to have hallucinations and be belligerent. This was totally unlike him. He had become schizophrenic. Science knows that there was nothing in his family situation or his environment that caused this. It was the unfortunate malfunctioning of his chemicals and electrical impulses. In spite of his problems, he managed to graduate from college and get into law school. During law school his problems intensified as the disease continued to ravage him. I tried to help him by assisting him in withdrawing from law school for a time and then helping him get re-entered. His parents struggled with much more complex problems with his care and treatment. He perservered in the face of long odds and managed to graduate from law school, although his concentration was impaired to the extent that he could not complete the rigors of the bar exam.

I had my own set of problems and after I was no longer married to his sister and by extension not very well connected with his family, I would get periodic reports from my children about their uncle. Advances in medications enabled him to experience some modicum of normality and gave his some relief from his torments but not nearly to the extent that his early promise had indicated. Then recently I received the phone call from one of my children. Their uncle had been found dead in his car from a heart attack experienced while attempting to get to a doctor's appointment to investigate lung problems brought on by the extensive smoking that was exacerbated by his mental illness.

He was in his mid-fifties. The promising young man that I had known and was fond of had been gone for more than 30 years. That man died many years ago, his body just did.

I wish him peace in his rest. He had experienced enough of the other.