Toni talks about her brother

Toni talks about helping her brother to flourish


When someone gets sick things change and we all handle things differently.  That doesn't mean that anyone's style is wrong. My brother may have been weak but that doesn't mean he was wrong. He dealt with things according to his emotional I.Q., fears and experiences. At the time he thought he was going to die. It wasn't for me to make a judgment about that. I didn't have the same experiences and it wasn't my body that was faced with illness.

He'll never have the dreams he once had. Now he dreams of playing basketball. If they knock him down because he can't see out of one eye, he gets back up again. If it means he can't move for a few weeks after a game, he'll take that. He believes that in order to be alive it means doing the things he loves.

When the doctor said he couldn't have chocolate, he told me he couldn't live without chocolate. I told him I want cookies and I can resist them. I didn't understand why he would still have to have chocolate against the doctor's orders. Now I might say, “you know the consequences of eating chocolate so have a good time”. I'm not sure that's good either.

At first I couldn't understand it because his actions appeared to hurt him but now I understand that he is doing it because he wants to be alive. He doesn't want to be sitting there like a vegetable. So now instead of showing my frustration with him, I ask him if he had a good time playing with his friends.

We have great conversations and I'm beginning to think that his weakness during his illness may have come from how much he learned from his research about his disease. Knowledge in this circumstance may have been a detriment to him.