In December, 2009, my eighty-nine year old father had a stroke, and after a neighbor was alerted by my mother and called 911, was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Several smaller strokes had led up to this one, but he had always recovered and continued his life, albeit with some cognitive decline. Once in the hospital, Dad had a second stroke, and the doctors were trying to see what the effect had been on him.
The neighbor called me at my suburban home outside Milwaukee, and I left immediately for the hospital.
The next day, my elder brother Rick, an attorney from Newark, flew in from New Jersey and took a taxi directly to Milwaukee’s Froedtert Hospital. With my mom, we hung around in Dad’s room for a while, talking quietly as I caught Rick up on this latest development, until the nurse came in to give Dad a bath. We adjourned with my mother to sit and wait in a nearby lounge area, and as we settled into our seats, we noticed another family was gathered there on the far side of the room.
“Time of death, eleven thirty-one,” said the oldest woman in the group. “There I said it.” There was a pause. “Thank you for being his wife,” she said to the middle-aged woman sitting quietly by herself on a window ledge.
Rick and I exchanged glances, and we looked over and saw there were some people in their twenties, all crying, the woman who appeared to be the wife of the deceased, and a couple of other older people. The woman who had spoken then said she didn’t care if she ever had another drink, but she could really use a cigarette.
There was silence for a few seconds.
“We’re going to go back to Bob’s house and watch the game,” one of the young people said to her. They assembled in the hallway in an awkward knot, and seemed unsure how to proceed.
The three of us got up to go back to Dad’s room, but then suddenly Rick said, “One sec”, as he patted my arm, and I watched as my brother walk over to the stunned and grieving group of people.
“I don’t know you,” he began, holding out both his arms, “but I want you to know, I’m so sorry for your loss.”
And he enveloped the small gray-haired woman who had just lost her son. He started to cry, and began hugging everyone standing awkwardly in the hallway, going to them one by one.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” he said, over and over.
My mother looked at me, wondering what was happening.
“He doesn’t know those people, does he?” she asked me.
I shook my head, but I couldn’t speak. Mom and I moved closer to the group, nodding and smiling sympathetically as Rick continued his campaign.
I should mention that my brother’s work in the field of law had always been to represent people who couldn’t afford legal representation. His compassion was endless for people less privileged than he was, and always had been. I wasn’t surprised by his action, but that didn’t stop me from admiring and being moved by it.
I’ve thought about that moment many times since, and always wonder - what if he hadn’t chosen love? What if he’d just shrugged and gone back to his own misery and the challenge of losing his father?
But having reached out, comforting complete strangers in their moment of grief and loss, somehow made our situation better as well. Seeing the purity of love at a time clouded by grief and uncertainty, wasn’t comforting exactly, but gave me hope that things can turn a corner, that if we connect and come together, there is an unnamed power in that coming together.
My father continued his decline, and died several days later. I will always associate that event with an unusual act of compassion, and the insight it took for it to materialize.
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