I lay my head on Keith’s chest just above his heart and listen to the beautiful beat of life, while the nurses unplug all the machines one by one. His chest heaves up and down and his heart beat at first appears strong. For a second I think that the doctors are wrong again and he will be fine. Like always, time and time again they have told us that he wouldn’t make it, and he always proved them wrong. Just two years ago he arrived at the emergency room with a body temp in the mid-eighties range. At first they couldn’t believe that he was not dead. Then they told us that he would not make it. In fact he had been in the E.R. so many times in the past that they knew him on sight.

When the intervals of each beat grow further and further apart and slowly fade, I know that this time they are right. The realization fills me with dread. At thirty-three he is just too young and dammit I’m five years older, I get to go first.

Please God, don’t take him, please. This isn’t fair I pray.

With each thud memories, like scenes from a movie play in my mind. Images of our thirty-three years together flood my thoughts.

Thud….Keith, my little brother is a lively toddler with bright blue angelic eyes and a smile so bright that it could rival the sun and earned him the nickname, Smiley-Dail. The sun is shining brightly on his little blond head as he chases after me laughing.

Lord, he has so much living to do. Please, just one more miracle.

Thud . .He is eight or nine years old and mischievously poking  a stick in the burn barrel trying to catch it on fire.

“Keith I’m gonna tell Nanny on you.” Dawn, our cousin shouts at him, She is the oldest and is expected to watch out for him especially.

“I’ll catch your hair on fire!” He shouts just as his stick ignites and he begins chasing her.

God I beg you, please take me instead…

Thud. . Keith is standing outside the house in the heat because our siblings and I are tired of his crap and having successfully beat him back inside are now guarding all the doors and windows with bats and other weapons.

Please! I need him…

THUD . He is sitting on my bathroom floor working on our pipes. We have completely refurbished our bathroom and he has been there every step of the way. The funny thing is he puts the pipes together on the floor as if working a puzzle. I stand at the door trying not to laugh at him while he puts it together takes it apart and talks to himself.

Please God no!

I lay there helpless listening for what seems like an eternity and an instant all at the same time, as his heart beat slows and his pain gradually fades mine only deepens. Slower . . . Slower . . . until it stops and one last breath expels from his lungs. Sadness engulfs me and suddenly I am a stranger in this world. I feel numb and confused. I look around the room at all the grim and sobbing familial faces that are somehow now foreign. There is no comfort there.

I turn to leave the ICU with my little piece of him. Earlier my mother, sister, and I cut snippets of his hair. He would be so damned mad. I walk towards the door and hear the most heart-wrenching blood curdling scream. I see my sister collapsing to the floor and her husband and our baby brother Joey reaching for her. It occurs to me for a second that as the oldest I should help console her but I feel nothing. I am an empty shell.

Outside the hospital, the world is lonely and the sun seems to burn brighter than ever as if it has stolen the light from his eyes. It blinds me. I walk toward the street thinking or rather not thinking that if I walk in front of a passing vehicle then I can be with Keith. In that moment it was all that I wanted.

I do not pray for strength, because God is too busy for me, or he just doesn’t care.