Tommy

The last time I saw my mother was fifteen years ago. I've never been able to forgive her killing my brother. Oh, she didn't "pull the trigger." But she may as well have.

You see, my sweet baby brother committed suicide shortly after he turned 20. He'd be 35 now, with a career, a family, a life all his own. But he couldn't get out from under Mother's thumb, and it killed him.

He was always a sensitive soul, much more prone to being hurt by the words of others than I or our older brother have ever been. Luke is a strong ox of a man, stolid and constant as the sun in the sky. And I learned early in life that if a girl can not cry when it hurts, can keep a straight face and a stiff upper lip, she can win, even in a world run by men. So I stuffed nostalgia, sentiment, tears and anything else too girly down as deep as it would go. My only weak spot was Tommy. He was the best thing to ever be part of my life. With him, I could be free, I could let go, I could be real. With him, I was safe.

But Mother—Mother believed that he was weak. She thought she saw in him the same passivity and cowardice that led Father away when Tom was just a toddler. But she was wrong. Where she saw passivity, there was true kindness, gentleness and caring. Where she saw cowardice was a deep, quiet strength, one that stood up for what was right, regardless of personal consequences.

But Tommy was always picked on at school and he never had the best grades, even though I know he was smarter than the rest of us. Schoolwork just wasn't his main priority. He loved music, and working with his hands, and poetry. He wanted to become a carpenter and play music in his spare time, and he knew he didn't need perfect grades to do those things. And Mother, who just knew that a degree from a good college was the only legitimate path for her children, resented every B and C Tom pulled throughout high school and junior college (the latter was a "compromise" designed to force Tommy into attending university). She would scold him, she would punish him, she would lecture him and she would mock him mercilessly.

And, bit by bit, so gradually that I didn't even see it, she poisoned him.

I had already earned my master's degree and was engaged to be married when the poison finally overwhelmed Tommy's system. He was still living at home, and I didn't know how bad it had gotten. I blame myself for getting so absorbed in my thesis work and my boyfriend that I abandoned my baby brother to the witch. I should've known. I should've seen it. I would've known, if I'd only been paying attention. But I wasn't. It's as much my fault as Mother's.

And on June 18, 2016, the poison overcame the last of Tommy's defenses. After years of scorn and criticism and abuse, he just couldn't hold on any longer. He walked out onto the George Washington Bridge in the middle of the night and threw himself off. He left me a voicemail just before he jumped. When I got it in the morning, I was screaming so hysterically that my neighbors called the police. By the time they arrived, the numbness had set in. I heard the knock on my door and couldn't muster the strength to answer it. After a moment, the cops broke it down, to find me sitting on the ground at the foot of my bed, with a thousand-yard stare and tear tracks on my face. I just held up the phone and pressed play. Thankfully, they understood. They called my then-fiancé at work (Brandon's nickname in my phone makes it pretty obvious he's my guy) and had him come home immediately.

I don't really remember any of that, nor do I remember Brandon getting home, him making me tea, him sitting with his arms around me for hours, him calling my best friend in desperation or her coming over and joining the two of us. In fact, I don't really remember anything until the next morning: I woke up curled against Brandon and felt intense relief that it must have all been a dream. Then I saw Lacey sleeping out on the couch and I knew it wasn't. Tommy was gone.

It took days before I could function again in any meaningful way. Brandon and Lacey were champs. They took turns sitting with me, running errands, cooking, working modified shifts at their jobs and fielding phone calls from Luke and Mother. I never would have made it without them both.

Twelve days in, the three of us drove up the coast to New York for Tommy's memorial service. I didn't want to face Mother—or anyone, to be honest—but Lacey convinced me that I would regret not being there to say goodbye and she and Brandon swore they wouldn't leave my side.

The service was nice, I guess. Luke spoke fairly eloquently (not usually his forte) about Tommy. Tommy's best friend Kyle said some very nice words. Mother used the "grieving mother" card to get out of saying anything, which was good. I wouldn't have believed anything she said anyway. I had intended to say a few words, but when the time came I found I couldn't possibly. When it was over, Luke and Kyle each came over and gave me big hugs.

We were talking about Tommy when Mother approached. She opened her arms to hug me and I had the sudden feeling that I was going to puke. It was time to leave, and I didn't care anymore about etiquette or what anyone would think. I never wanted to lay eyes on that woman again.

These days, Brandon and I are both teaching at the University of Virginia. We have two amazing kids: Eric, who is 11, and Thomas, who is 8. I agonized over naming our youngest. I didn't want him to grow up to learn about his uncle and be ashamed of his final act. I didn't want any sort of stigma attached to him. But in the end, my dear husband said it perfectly:

"We're not naming him after Tommy's death. We're naming him after Tommy's life. The incredible person he was, the things he was able to accomplish in his short life and the legacy he has left to our family. When our son is old enough, I would love to tell him all about his uncle. It's a name he will be able to be proud of. Just as proud as you always have been of your brother."

I still see Luke a couple times a year; he and his wife live in Philadelphia with a couple dogs and a whole passel of kids. Lacey is family, too, and she and her husband come down from Washington for every Thanksgiving and we head up every Fourth of July. Kyle and I got closer after Tommy died, reminiscing about him and bonding over our love for him. He and his boyfriend still live in the Upper West Side, and we visit them whenever Brandon or I have a conference in the city, which is usually once a semester or so. Having lost so much of my biological family, and with Brandon being an only child and only having his mom left, it's been good to build a new one together with these amazing people.

Sometimes I wonder what Mother has been doing all this time. But my strictest rule with Luke is that he not mention anything about her unless and until she dies. I don’t want to know anything else.

And I think about Tommy every single day. We have pictures of him all over the house. I picked up his guitar from Kyle a few weeks after the memorial and I've been playing it ever since; Brandon has a small woodworking bench out in the garage. In our own ways, we honor Tommy's passions and stay connected to him how we can.

A few weeks ago, we all gathered at Tommy's gravestone at Trinity Church Cemetery. Nobody told Mother. We held hands, we wept, we laughed and we thanked Tommy for everything he gave us, in life and in death. On Tommy's gravestone is a very fitting quote from Ernest Hemingway, one of Tommy's favorite authors and also a victim of suicide:

“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”