Waiting for my Brother

I remarried in October of 2007, after being a single mother for seven years. That first Christmas, everything the kids asked for, their stepfather, gave them.  We all agreed it was the best Christmas ever. I felt like God had created the perfect program for us and downloaded it into our lives. My eighteen-year-old daughter got the perfume and Victoria Secrets pajamas she pined over, Stephen, then nine-years-old, received a guitar with guitar lessons, and my twelve-year-old son, Christopher, received the crowing jewel—a PlayStation.

Ten months later, Christopher abandoned his PlayStation for the X-Box 360 Stephen received for his tenth birthday. What made the X-Box better than the PlayStation was that the X-Box could be played online with friends. The only problem for Stephen, was his friends didn't have the X-Box yet, but Christopher's friends did. While Stephen waited for the kids his age, to catch up, he enjoyed watching Christopher play online with friends. We gave Christopher his own X-Box for his birthday a few months later, and boys yelling at screens became the background music of our home.

Christopher played his X-Box in his bedroom, while Stephen played in the living room.  If they were mad at each other, they would ignore each other in the game, and when they weren’t, they played on the same team against their everyone else. They were even more inseparable than ever.

It wasn’t college that separated them for the first time, it was Christopher’s substance use disorder. Christopher lived in Florida for a while after getting sober and even though miles apart they were still able to play X-box together. Stephen knew when Christopher wasn’t OK, when too much time passed without seeing his brother logged into the game.  It went this way for ten years. When Stephen went to college, and Christopher was in recovery, they would play.  When Christopher moved home, and Stephen was away, they played.  When Stephen moved home in 2020 because of the pandemic, they played.

Last year Christopher came home to go to a treatment center in Pennsylvania. Before heading back to Florida, he stopped to meet his new niece, Stephens’ 6-month-old daughter.  The next day Stephen drove Christopher to the airport. “See you on X-box, bro.”  Stephen waited, But Christoher never logged back in.

I went to Stephen’s house yesterday for a visit and was so happy that I was able to spend time with my adorable Twenty-Two-month-old Granddaughter. After a game of hide and seek, and airplane, she locked into her favorite show “Miss Rachel”, giving me and Stephen a chance to talk. “How are you?”

“I had a bad Chris day yesterday, Mom.  It sucks so bad. It’s just not fair.  I miss my brother.” Our worst nightmare had come true. Fentanyl laced cocaine caused Christopher to suffer a fatal overdose.

“I know. I’m so sorry you are in pain.”, was all I could say.

I asked my son what triggered his grief the day before, and he shared that when he signed onto play X-Box, an alert popped up, “Christopher has not logged in for 510 days.”

"Oh my God, that's brutal. I'm so sorry Stephen."

"Yeah, like I don't need a machine to rub it in my face."

Driving home, I remembered that first best Christmas, not knowing that fifteen years later, we would get the worst news imaginable, just several days before Christmas. But I also felt lucky to have two sons who truly cared for each other. I thought of the precious gift of time they were afforded through the digital space of gaming and how it connected them even when they were apart.

“It’s like the game is waiting for us to play together." Stephen said when I called later to check on him.

"Or maybe it's Christopher letting you know he is with you."

"Or maybe it's just what the game is programed to do Mom."