For My Brother: Happy Birthday Hector

Today is my brother Hector's birthday, he's 48 years old and, at least for today, he is sober.  My brother is an alcoholic.  Generally, he is usually drunk rather than sober, but he has been trying harder to attend his AA meetings and there are briefs periods of time where he is the lovable, goofy brother that I remember from my childhood and not the lonely, depressed alcoholic man that I often see.  I like to imagine an alternate reality where my brother got the help he needed early on to deal with his depression (which I believe is the underlying cause for his alcoholism) and that instead of being a 48 year old man still living with our mother and unable to find a job, instead he is happily married to a wonderful woman who appreciates his sensitive artistic side and they have 2 kids and live in a cute little cottage where my brother makes a living as an artist. 

 

My brother had the cards stacked against him from the beginning.  I believe he had an undiagnosed reading disorder, and at the time he attended school, children just weren't given the help they needed.  They were called slow learners by the teachers, and stupid by the other kids.  The one thing that seemed to save my brother then was his out-going personality (he could make anyone laugh) and his artistic ability, so he had a lot of friends and he was generally well liked.  His teachers continued to promote him to the next grade up, so by the time he made it to high school he was functionally illiterate. 

 

I'm 9 years younger than my brother, I recall one day when he was around 16 and I was 7, and he just started grabbing books from a bookshelf and he handed them to me and just asked me to start reading.  I read through all of them, and I looked up at him when I was done, and though he never actually cried his eyes looked watery.  He smiled at me, and said he was very proud of me, and that he was so happy to know I was so smart and that I would never have to hear anyone tell me I was stupid.  I was too young to fully comprehend what was going on, but I just knew that I felt sad for him and that I loved him. 

 

One thing that made me proud of him though was his artwork.  Everyone that saw his work was in awe of his talent.  He could draw anything.  He loved drawing cars and I remember the designs he came up with seemed so futuristic and out of this world, but he was a visionary, because I see a lot of what he drew on the cars that are out today.  He also loved creating bizarre monsters and creatures.  The kind of stuff that you see on heavy metal albums and fantasy books, but his stuff was so much better.  But because of his reading problem he had little to no confidence in any of his abilities and he would always say, "I can't draw for a living, I can't even read, who would want my artwork."  He just didn't have enough faith in himself, regardless of what anyone told him. 

 

The real turning point in my brother's life happened on his 21st birthday.  He was going out for the night with his best friend Ray.  Ray was a great guy; handsome, sweet, a little shy and he was a good friend to my brother.  I think how the story goes, is that they were suppose to meet up with their other friends later that night, and in the meantime they decided they wanted to score some weed for the evening.  They walked around the corner to the local gang hangout (we lived in a real crappy neighborhood, but my brother and none of his friends were in any gangs) to buy some stuff.  They knew the guys in the gang well enough to stick around for a bit to bullshit and stuff, which is what they were doing when it happened.  A rival gang pulled up and did a driveby shooting.  Hector was fine.  Ray died in my brothers arms.  My brother has never recovered from that night, and I think in so many ways a big part of my brother's spirit died that day too. 

 

I mean he went on with life, as best he could.  He held a good job for many years, went out with his friends, enjoyed his art hobby, but he didn't date much and he often came home from work and planted himself in front of the tv and drank beer until it was time to go to sleep.  If anyone questioned him about his drinking he's always say the same thing, "As long as I can hold a job down, and can still draw, then what does it matter how much I drink."  Then one day he lost his job, it was the 80's and factory layoffs were commonplace.  His drinking increased, his depression became evident and his life just never turned around after that. 

 

I wish I could end this by saying things are great for him now, that he's in recovery and making progress, but I really can't give you that happy ending.  I'd love for my brother to make it to full recovery and stay sober for an extended period of time, but the odds are very much against him.  The day of his birthday is usually the hardest day for him to make it through without a drink, I can't recall a birthday were he wasn't drunk.  I'm not a praying type of person, but today I am praying, hoping, thinking, wanting that my brother will make it through the day without that drink.  Happy Birthday Hector, I love you.