A Sad Day

I woke up this morning like it was any other Thursday.  I heard the garbage trucks rumbling down the street as I went across the house.   I made coffee and did my usual stuff and was working on WRITING A WRONG, when the phone rang.  My husband answered it in another room. And then a few minutes later her came into the kitchen and told me a detective was on the phone.  He was calling to tell me that my brother had died.

A neighbor had noticed that he hadn’t taken his trash can out as he always did and when they looked the window saw that he was lying on the ground.   He was already gone.  No sign of foul play and the medical examiner would determine the cause of death.  They’d had to break in the door.  The detective was very nice and apologized for telling me over the phone, but then he was on the other side of the country.

It was a shock but I had to pull myself together to start dealing with things.  And now I have to fly across the country and take care of everything with no idea what I’m going to be walking into.

All of it would be hard any time, but with the virus even harder.  

We always got along, though we haven’t really been close for years, but we knew each other was there.  I’d call him when he was going through something that worried him and just listen. He’d call me when some disaster struck near me to make sure I was okay.  And now no more.