He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother

IT IS 1979. I am 12 years old and in Gr.7 at St Helena Primary School in Welkom. There is a knock on our classroom door. I look up from my desk and my eyes follow my teacher as she exchanges a few hushed words with the visitor. She looks at me and says, “James".

I know who is standing on the school steps. My teacher closes the door behind me. I look at my younger brother, nine-year-old Dave, his skinny body in the grey school uniform. Since he was little, my sister's boyfriend has called him “Tinktinkie". Dave is constantly sad for no apparent reason. Our school principal has given him permission to come and talk to me when he feels down. His psychologist recommended that he engage in a sport. His coach, Uncle Sallas from the Springbok Amateur Wrestling Club, teaches him a few techniques.

Dave completes his schooling. A vocational counsellor, Dr Johan Grobler from Bloemfontein, recommends that he go to university. At that time, as a psychology student, I believe some of Dave's qualities cannot necessarily be measured academically. I enjoy his sense of humour and the beautiful Afrikaans words he uses.

He decides to complete his mandatory two-year military training in Kimberley. After a few months, he leaves the military. He gets a job in the public service in Pretoria but soon resigns.

During this time, we diligently try to provide Dave with relief from his troubled mind. As a family, we helplessly witness him struggling against waves of melancholy that descend seemingly out of nowhere. However, we also have good times. As twenty-somethings, Dave and I stand by a barbecue fire in the Rustenburg caravan park where the two of us are on holiday together. “Jimmy, I've always wondered. You're a psychologist, and I've been in and out of hospitals. Yet I know you very well. You were already in university when we still shared a room. Do I really have more issues than you?" We look into each other's eyes and laugh heartily and endlessly.

It becomes apparent over the following decades that no intervention will bring lasting relief to Dave's heavy heart. I often think I would make any humanly possible plan to alleviate his distress. A few years ago, Professor Pierre Joubert, his psychiatrist for three decades, revealed that no one can withstand the biological burdens that have been dealt to my brother. Joubert added that people in his situation typically do not live long.

In 2018, Dave and I visit his eye specialist in Pretoria. After the appointment, we walk to my rented car. Dave accidentally slams the car door against the vehicle parked next to ours. “Sorry, Jimmy," he says. I sit silently for a moment before turning the ignition. I am devastated by the specialist's damning statement about the damage to Dave's transplanted cornea. “Jimmy, don't worry," Dave says softly. “I gave up on my eye a long time ago." Then he adds, “Can we go buy Russians and chips?" I think resignedly: if all else fails, eat Russians and chips.

Recently, my older sister, Dalene, called to tell me that Dave (51) had unexpectedly passed away due to a blood clot during a brief stay at a hospital in Pretoria. She informs me that due to Covid, she had limited visits with him. She also tells me that during his admission, he asked to stay in a room with sunlight. The next day, I call the specialist who treated Dave. He tells me that Dave was eating in his chair, then he got up and lay down on his bed. He must have immediately lost consciousness, as if falling asleep.

I sit quietly for a while after saying goodbye to my last client. The sun casts its final golden rays on my front yard. I think of Dave. He was the epitome of sensitivity, and from childhood he would pick up on the faintest ripples in his and others' emotions. I remember his innocence. I often wondered as a child why we never fought. And why he embraced the notion that life's sunshine would evade him and shine only on others' waters.

We contacted the matron of the care home in Pretoria where Dave had lived for a few years before his death. She told us how another resident, Frikkie, reacted to Dave's departure. I remember Frikkie. Over time, I became accustomed to him when visiting Dave. It was known to all that Frikkie had no desire to speak with staff or other residents — including  Dave. He was thin, with prominent features. However, when Dave and I sat on the white wire garden chairs outside his room, Frikkie would stick close to us. He would square his body towards us, and he and Dave would silently lock eyes for a while without exchanging a word. Frikkie would then turn away in a dignified manner and slowly walk away. At one point, Dave looked back at Frikkie, turned to me, and said, “Jimmy, the people here sometimes do unusual things".

Sitting in my office, my thoughts return to the matron at Dave's care home. She told us how a nurse found Frikkie two days after Dave's passing, standing in the corridor with his hand against the door frame. “What's wrong, Frikkie?" she asked. Without opening his eyes, he simply mumbled, “Dave".

I can conjure many bittersweet thoughts about Dave. That's how it is with losses. They stir you deeply. Just when the stirring subsides, it stirs again. Not all of life's questions have answers. What do you say as a 12-year-old to your little brother standing on the school steps because his mood is spiralling downwards for no apparent reason? When hope disappoints a loved one, only love and its most precious fruit — compassion — remain.

For a while, I choose to focus on the present moment in my office, and I watch a bird on my lawn. It doesn't have intricate thought processes; it simply experiences the moment. It pecks at a piece of food, turns its head and looks intently at me. It spreads its wings, jumps buoyantly into the air and flies towards the setting sun. “Jimmy, I want to go where Mom is," Dave said. The bird becomes a dot. I feel my shoulders lighten, and I think, “That's okay. I'm so glad my brother's struggles are over. Dave has wings now."

P.S. There is a faded cutting in my album: an article from the Vista newspaper in Welkom on February 7, 1980. The caption reads: “Little Dawie Scott, wrestler from the Springbok Wrestling Club, is seen here trying with all his might to bend the head of Jacob Conradie from Hertzogville backward during their contest at the Welkom showgrounds. Conradie won the contest."

James Scott's book, Dan sien ons mekaar (Then We See Each Other), has just been published by Protea Boekhuis.

♦ VWB ♦

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