For The Love of His Brother?

I

 grew up in a very typical 60’s suburb, where all the homes looked the same and everyone knew each other. All the neighborhood kids grew up with each other, played together and learned about life together. When tragedy hit a family on the street, everyone felt the reverberations of it. Across the street from us lived a family, a wife, father and two sons. Both of the sons were older than me, however I knew them to say hi or when they would visit with my older siblings. When I was about 8 years old, both of these boys were in the service. This was during the time of the Vietnam War. The one boy was stationed in Hawaii. One summer night his family received a call that there son had be killed in an auto accident, he was only nineteen years old. The family was devastated. We all mourned the lost of their son. I can remember how the neighborhood women gathered to help the family through this horrific time. Of course I was only eight and since I was not close with this neighbor boy the impact of his death on me was not a great one. Fast forward ten years, and the family is struck by another tragic event. The older, surviving brother of the same family parked his car atop a very high bridge which was less then a mile from the river, exited the car and plunged over the side of the bridge to his death. He jumped into the cold of the river in the dead of winter and his lifeless body was not found until the water warmed up that summer when my older brother found the body washed up along the river bank (my brother had been looking for the body on a regular basis since he jumped).

Why he jumped to his death was a mystery to all of us. He was in his late twenties, he was happily married, two wonderful little children and he was doing what he loved to do for a living. There was a note left behind, however we never learned what it said. From all appearances this man had everything to live for.

What I didn’t know then is what I learned over the weekend was that he and his brother who had perished in the car accident were very close and that he took his brothers premature death very hard. In fact after the funeral, the older brother disappeared into New York City for a year, living off the streets, trying to come to terms with what had happened. He resurfaced a year later and began to pull his life back together and became very successful.

What I learned yesterday was that there was a witness the night that he jumped off the bridge. The witness related that this man stopped his car on the bridge, calmly exited his car, climbed onto the rail of the bridge and reach is arm out in front of him in a way that looked like he was hugging someone and as he reached out to hug this unseen someone he simply walked off the rail of the bridge. The speculation was that he was reaching out to hug his brother.

I am not attempting to draw any lesson from this story. I am simply relating it as it has been told to me. I felt compelled to share this with you. I cannot tell you how many times I have had chills run up and down my spine as I wrote this.

It does make you think.

I do believe life is eternal. I also believe that there is much that we do not yet see, however it is very real and present.