My ex-brother-in-law

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He’s my age, I first met him around 1986 or so. Cool guy, good looking, clean cut, guy, social guy. Pretty smart I guess, made a good living as a mechanic. Some of you may remember me posting about him before. My sister and him divorced about 8 years ago.

Well to make a long story short, after my sister divorced him he got into drugs. Meth. It wrecked his life, he lost everything, he smoked up al his money and his house. Then about three months ago he had a stroke at age 54. He had mixed meth, pills, and booze and had a stroke, he ended up in the ICU.

I always thought he was a half-way decent guy but my middle sister (not the one who married him) said he was an as*hole. His stroke destroyed part of his heart, no one knew if he would live. Well he survived but he was basically helpless and had to totally depend on doctors and nurses to survive on a day to day basis. He couldn’t feed or wash himself, he couldn’t even talk for a month.

Well my sister felt a little loyalty towards him and started visiting him. She would update his condition with me and my middle sister.
He came from a family of four boys When everybody thought he was dying none of his brothers visited him, not even once. I couldn’t fathom that fact. I thought they were close but they were all actually competitive.
But not to visit him? I couldn’t believe it. His mom visited him in the hospital several times, but then she stopped and his whole family gave up on him. I don’t know if he deserved it, he wasn’t as nice as I thought he was, but for his family to desert him says more about them than it does him.

Well my sister told me tonight she is not going to visit him anymore. They’ve been divorced for ten years, he treated her bad and it boils down to, what does she really owe him? If she kept seeing him it would drag her into being a fulltime caregiver for someone who had not contacted her in ten years. My sister is nice, but realistic. The whole situation is sad but my sister has her own life. But I can’t believe his family who he grew up with don’t give a s*it about him now. I sure don’t want to end up like that.

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That IS sad.
No way would you end up like that. Your family cares about you very much.

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well, I’m glad your sister sees trouble when she finds it. His family is probably very aware of his drug use and disowned him. Addiction can cause things like that.

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Mean people end up alone…for good reason too.

I volunteered at an old folks home for the summer when I was 13 years old, and I had a hard time keeping my tears out of sight when I saw these folks sitting there alone…for the rest of their lives.

Didn’t take longer than a few days to find out why no one wanted to be around them.
Still, for me it was only a few hours a day, for them, it was forever, so I gave it my best to find out what I could do for them to make their day a bit brighter.

Most wanted someone to listen to them as they reminisced about their past and how they ended up there.
Others wanted to be wheeled outside in the sun.

One particular crusty old crab that no one would get near finally softened her shell when after the hundredth time I’d ask what she really wanted from me, and instead of the usual response for me “To go away”
She wanted me to just sit with her and hold her hand.

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that mean a lot.

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what a beautiful person you are @Csummers thank you for that story.

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