Permanently Elsewhere

Before his cancer diagnosis, my brother Barry had been remarkably healthy with no forewarning of the exhausting discomfort that nearly continuous chemotherapy treatment would bring. He died in November of 2019 after a three year struggle with leukemia. Throughout his life and including his final difficult years, the piano was his steady companion. His own piano lived in his bedroom, not sitting regally in the living room or

stuck away in some dusty corner of the house.

Piano man, sibling reunion in 2017

As adults, Barry and I were close, but as children the seven year age difference gave my older brother an aura of great mystery. From my child perspective, Barry didn't actually live with us. As a teenager, he enjoyed unique parental indulgence to come and go as he pleased though I never heard it discussed or remarked upon by other family members. He spent most of his waking hours elsewhere and as he was years older than me, I was usually in bed asleep whenever it was he made it home for the night. Some of that freedom may have been because he worked in my father's business and had a special permit to drive even before the legal age of sixteen. He took on a worldly, grown-up appearance from a very early age.

Barry in jaunty military cap; I'm the wee one in authentic play clothes before Oshkosh b'gosh

When I was around ten years old, Barry drove me to a movie theater in our closest small city, a rare event for me. The movie was Dangerous Crossing, a black & white noirish, mystery film. Barry dropped me off, left to hang out with friends, and picked me up when the movie got out. At the time, I was in absolute wonderment at my brother's blasé indifference to this incredible movie experience. It added to the mystique. 

For anyone who went through high school before the Russian satellite named Sputnik was launched in October of 1957, high schools in small, rural towns often seemed like little more than an excuse to organize sports teams. Barry was athletic but chose not to participate in school sports. By not playing team sports, he kept a relatively low profile; he didn't spend his free time at basketball or baseball practice. Neither did he spend his time studying or doing any type of homework, but his grades were never discussed and didn't seem to be a problem. Barry was exceptionally smart and apparently school in that day required little effort.

Barry was, however, a natural musician and could play trumpet, guitar, and piano without lessons or formal training of any sort. While this talent endeared him to the school music teacher and the church choir director, it had rather the opposite effect on his peers in the sports-minded farming community. He was largely absent from our house, but his life elsewhere did not include much time spent in the small town either. I never asked my brother then where he spent his free time, but I was always gloriously happy when he made an appearance. He would sit at the piano in the dining room and play jazz, blues and boogie-woogie and I was enthralled. 

Years later, I learned that while still in high school, Barry played piano at a local night club on weekends. He would have been underaged to even be in a night club, let alone working there. If I ever questioned Barry or my parents about this odd arrangement, I don't explicitly remember their answer. Perhaps they all believed that a normal life was not probable for my brother in that small town and that the unconventional arrangement was all that prevented Barry from dropping out of school and going permanently elsewhere. He mostly floated about in his own world during this period, and barely registered the existence of his brothers and sisters unless we were being especially annoying. It was all the more surprising then that he so dramatically changed the trajectory of life for three of his younger siblings.  

After serving several years in the army overseas, Barry returned home and transplanted himself to the San Francisco Bay Area. And one by one, as we came of age, he invited my sister, my brother and I to leave the provincial life in Ohio for a more cosmopolitan experience. The transition for all of us was not without high drama and while Barry didn't hover over us, he did provide an emotional base camp where we could always retreat and revive. 

Barry and California siblings posing for the cover of a 70's rock album but without the music. 

Siblings in birth order from left to right

My brothers and sisters were not always perfectly congenial together but in later years, we put sibling rivalries and resentments aside and the six of us periodically gathered for reunions. Barry's death along with aging and assorted infirmities prevents these happy occasions now and we stoically accept meeting on Zoom instead. I find it much harder to accept my brother Barry's absence.