Today was a very weird day. It felt off... unusual behavior from one family I worked hard to help... happy wedding for one of my clients who so deserves happiness... showed a vacant property 9pm-10:15pm to another family I haven't seen in several years. Ate a bowl of soup for supper @ 11:15pm Odd out-of-step feeling still hung over me and then I remembered that 4 years ago today my brother, Art, passed away. No wonder today seemed different... June 30, 1949 - July 7, 2014
Arthur Wilhelm Nelson II
2018 - I lived only 14 months before Artie was born... so he was my shadow, the one I got into trouble with as a child, fellow giggler, back seat buddy in the car… always up for a bike ride, building a fort or catching minnows or crawfish in the creek. I cheered him on at his baseball games... he was a crackerjack pitcher and third baseman but could actually play any position better than most... and he watched my basketball and volleyball games. We shared the same bedroom up to 3rd & 4th grade and he always got the top bunk. We were often in the same Sunday school classes... liked the same foods and TV shows. He looked like Dad's side of the family, I looked like Mom's family so we had the DNA covered. When twins Beverly Lynne and Frederick Charles were born, he took care of one baby and I would look after the other. We laughed and cried over the same things. When Mom & Dad were arguing we consoled each other. When he was bullied at school over his disabled hand or his red hair, I was his defender... We chased horned-toads and lizards in the Texas bush & swam in the Gulf of Mexico together. We had many of the same friends... and when Daddy got a military transfer with the US Air Force we would tell our friends goodbye and shed tears together. We walked to and from school together... we bowled (real 10-pin bowling) together, and just like our parents, we were very good at this sport… but he was better.
He could run faster and climb higher and was fearless to ride our neighbor's horse then give me a hand up so I could have a turn. We literally breathed the same air for 18 years and after our lives took us to different parts of the country, he would drive his Krueger Metal big rig through Arkadelphia, Arkansas, Ft. Wayne, Indiana or Ft. Walton Beach, Florida for overnight surprise visits on his way to somewhere. On those short visits and when our families would get together in Arizona or Ohio, I could draw deep breaths again. He was funny… really funny! He had uncommon common sense and was as stubborn as a mule once he had his mind made up. He would do anything for anybody and worked hard his whole life. NASCAR and his dogs, his sons & grandchildren and his bride…his life's love, Jennifer Kay Nelson, were his passion, his reason for living.
Art’s sons had been misdiagnosed as ADD-ADHD and put on Ritalin. Arthur took himself off the meds when he was about 12 and called his mom at work to say he wanted his life to end. She rushed home to find him hanging from the big tree in the middle of their yard. With help from neighbors, she lifted him up until EMS arrived and his life was spared. Art gave up long distance driving after that and went to work delivering beer for Anheuser-Busch, a job he dearly loved. When he lost his job with Anheuser-Busch as a dock foreman, he took his 401K money and started Nelson & Sons Landscaping and Hauling Company. He worked himself to the bone in the blistering Arizona heat transforming clients’ yards into works of art, often with a fountain or water feature… but would be ready in a minute to go fishing with anyone who wanted to go. He adored hummingbirds and the Sonora desert around his Tucson home and became an expert on the flora and fauna of the desert. He had all his bad teeth pulled and got new dentures before he died, so he had a beautiful smile and was proud to show it off.
Art and Kay endured great sorrow for years as their sons became involved in lives of crime and they stepped to the plate to help their daughters-in-law raise their grandchildren with absent fathers.
Arthur drove straight through from Arizona to Florida to say goodbye to our mom as she lay in ICU on life support while carrying so much grief in his heart and mind already with his wife slipping away from aggressive brain degeneration - Picks Disease –and he stood with Bev by our dying father’s bed until he drew his last breath. Kay’s deterioration escalated and in a desperate attempt keep her memory alive, Art drove back and forth between Arizona grandchildren and Ohio mom & sisters. This took an enormous toll on his health.
When his beloved Kay died in 2013, he nearly lost his mind… he had made a promise to her to never put her in a home… but this was a promise he could not keep because his own health deteriorated so badly. Ann, Kay’s oldest sister and guardian, made the difficult call to place Kay where she could have 24 hour care for her own safety and to allow Art to sleep in more than 10 minute increments. Art was beside himself with grief and I believe he made up his mind that if he could not be with Kay he didn’t want to live. He literally died of a broken heart.
Art spent his last months in constant companionship with his best friend & brother-in-law, Lyman. He loved Kay’s family from the depths of his soul and was humbled and grateful beyond what words could say that they let him live out his last days with them fighting COPD for his own last breaths. We talked nearly every day on the phone and I would end our conversations with, “Just keep breathing, Arthur…” and at his request I’d sing Robert Munsch’s song with my own beautiful Celtic tune…
“I’ll love your forever, I’ll like you for always…
As long as I’m living… my brother you’ll be…
As long as one of us is living… Family we will be…”
I made 7 trips to see my brother in Wooster, Ohio those last 18 months, but as I look back on it, it was not enough. I still regret that I was not with him when he died. I should have been in that room… breathing the same air… as he took his last breath.
On my last visit to be with my brother in early June 2014 he was near death, slept 20+ hours a day and hardly ate or moved. We watched Duck Dynasty and he laughed a bit in one of the rare moments he was awake. His beloved brother-in-law, Lyman Dawson, cooked for him but he didn’t eat much. Homecare nurses and Hospice visited regularly. He was on oxygen 24/7/365. His faithful dogs, Koko and Tiny lay on his bed, on his body. Lyman, Ann and I helped him to the bathroom and I spent that visit sitting and sleeping in a recliner by his hospital bed in their dining room under a sign they made and hung over his bed that said “Art’s House”. I cried silently knowing this might be my last visit to see him alive.
As often happens with those near death, his rallied. He’d go out to the back yard to sit with Lyman, or to the man-cave in the attic. We got him to take a few short rides into the gorgeous Ohio farming countryside. We went to the mausoleum to visit Kay, but he had a hard time going inside.
Our last visit there, he went in and dropped to his knees in front of her vault and wept openly, talking to her under his breath. It was holy… sacred… wrenching… to see him on the floor like that, bent over, shoulders shaking in grief, but I tiptoed away to give him privacy and shed my own tears knowing he was telling her he would soon be with her. In the quiet of wee-hours fitful sleeping he would reach out to take my hand… “I’m glad you came, Patsy… I can breathe easier knowing you are in the room…” I returned to Canada and tried to pick up my life as Town Councillor and Realtor.
Arthur Wilhelm Nelson II turned 65 on June 30th, and one week later, on July 7, 2014 this kindred-soul of a brother, my life long partner, the one remaining person who knew me my entire life, drew his last breath with Ann and Lyman by his side. We set his funeral to fit Bev and I being able to attend the Bruce Family Reunion in August and have family at this service. Bev wasn’t able to attend after all, so with Ann & Lyman and their family and friends, we paid tribute to this humble man, a giant among men. I gave a truthful, celebratory eulogy for my brother, and sang...
“I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always…
As long as I’m living, my brother you’ll be…
As long as one of us is living, family we will be…”
His ashes were contained in a brass box and placed in the same vault with Jennifer Kay's ashes.