On Monday I attended my brother’s funeral and listened to the tributes people shared of who he was and what he meant to them. As I listened it began to dawn on me that they knew a different person to the one I had ‘known’ all my life. People spoke of a kind, gentle and generous man who loved his wife and family deeply. They spoke of his love for music, wine, food and travel – for shoes and watches – colourful clothes and for his dog and cat.

It felt like they were describing a very good man, but it wasn’t a man that I knew.

As I was cycling today I was reflecting on our relationship of 57 years and why it was awkward and clumsy. Part of it was upbringing – a culture lacking in emotional connection – and part of it was that I mistook his softness and sensitivity for weakness and neediness. As a result I stepped away from him to hang with more blokey blokes. That happened some time in our 20’s and from then on our connection was difficult. So this poem is part memoir and part lament.

Unfamiliar Flesh 

My hand rests

On your pale freckled arm

Soft and warm

Unfamiliar skin

To touch is not our way

Unless in a handshake

But this is the last time 

I will touch

So I rest my fingers

On your wrist

Ponder our lives together

Yet not together

And whisper a futile, quiet prayer

For your return

—

But you are not coming back

Tubes in your wrist and throat

You have already left

Only a warm carcass remains

Machines do the work

For now

A nurse hovers busily

Taking notes 

Checking screens

Her footsteps patter

Pens scratch on paper

A quiet final moment 

Seems impossible 

—

My mind roams to the life we shared 

As children, it was a bed even

Such was Belfast in the 60s

Innocent and unaware 

We kept one another warm

We shared jokes

We tickled one another’s backs

You were gentle and soft

Generous and kind

Too easy to take advantage of

Sharing your treats

While I hoarded mine 

Wanting to hang out 

But I shoved you away

I mistook gentleness for weakness

Sensitivity for timidity 

I knew you looked up to me

But I shed you like a skin

For mates rough and rowdy

—

The brother thing was clumsy 

You pursued our bond many times

Wrote me letters and called me out

On each occasion I responded

With indifference and a sigh

I put your letters in the bin

I gave up 

Long before you stopped trying

Intimacy was not in my vocabulary 

Brother love a mysterious concept

We laboured thru life

Never quite connecting 

Never giving up completely 

—

Then snap

—

You died

—

In a moment

Fifty seven years of life ended

And now there is no difficult story

To resolve

It is over and we finish

As we have been for so long

Together but separate

Related in name

But distant in reality

So my hand on your arm

Feels weird

Inappropriate even

Two men equally awkward in death

As in life