Good morning, everyone... :seeya:
I've mentioned many times in this thread and others about my brother (2 yrs younger than I am) being in and out of rehabs & hospital
emergency rooms with drug addictions & alcohol abuse.... which started immediately after his only child, a daughter was killed at age 20,
by a drunk driver. That was about 20 years ago.
My niece was on her way from Santa Cruz, where she had just finished her Jr year at UCSC. She then went to Burlingame, to see my mom and her other
grandmother... then went on to San Francisco to see my dad. The accident happened between my dad's home in SF and on her way to see my brother (her dad).
After a visit with my brother, my niece was going to go to Tahoe to see her mom. My niece Corrina's plans were to then go back
to the Bay Area, to San Jose and pick up her boyfriend and they were going to Mexico to travel / work for the summer before her
Sr year. Each summer, after high school & college summers, Corrina went to a different country and traveled and worked.
My brother had such a difficult time dealing with the loss of his daughter. He struggled so much with his addictions.
Last April, I went to California, after a friend of his called and said my brother was not doing well.
I caught the next plane to CA and then my dad and I went to make sure my brother had been taken to a hospital.... which he had not been.
We took him to the ER, where he was then admitted & spent 7 days being detoxed. He was in & out of alcoholic stupors, had the DT's, multiple
seizures, etc. And then left the hospital AMA.
I spent 4 weeks taking him to doctors, to AA mtgs, meeting with psychiatrists, etc, etc etc...
he appeared to be on the road to recovery and said he loved being sober.
However, shortly after I left to return to AZ and then to NY for my son's wedding... my brother started drinking very heavily again.
My sister went to CA from Dallas during August to check on him and said he was so drunk he refused to get out of bed. My sister left
CA not having a visit nor knowing what to do. (She's his conservator for money).
Well.... yesterday afternoon, I received a phone call from my dad in California, with the news that my brother had died Wednesday.
Apparently he went to bed and died in his sleep. A friend of my brother's said that my brother (Jim) didn't answer his phone for 2 days,
so went to Jim's apartment to check on him and that Jim was in bed... no pulse, not breathing, and appeared to have died several hours prior.
The reason I'm telling you this... and why here... is because I've come to feel close to all of you during the MJ/CM Case and Trial...
more so than any other cases I've followed. I think it's been because there were so few of us... and most of us have been on
the same page re CM, joked, told some personal stories, etc
Anyway, I had a need to tell my close friends about my brother Jimmy.
And since so many of you have read about or listened to other personal stories of mine...
you all are considered some of my close friends now.
P.S. I didn't mean for this to be so long... and I would have condensed it...
but I figured you're all used to my long stories by now and would understand!
My deepest condolences to you and your family.