The phone rang at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning. The caller introduced himself as a Broward County homicide detective. I had no clue why Florida law enforcement was calling me in Massachusetts.
He asked if I was the sister of Stuart Weiner. And in that moment, I prepared myself to hear something terrible. For a few seconds, I delayed it by remaining silent.
“Mrs. Levine, we found your brother this morning in his office. Unfortunately, he was unresponsive.”
He waited for me to say something.
“Do you mean . . . dead?”
“Yes ma’am. I am sorry.”
“Do his children know yet?”
“Yes, his son told us to call you.”
The detective went on to say that because no one had witnessed my brother’s death, the police department was required to investigate the possibility of foul play. Stuart had mailed me a copy of his medical records for safekeeping a couple of years before and I told the officer what I knew, then faxed over the documents. He concluded that death was most likely a result of natural causes, maybe a heart attack or stroke. Thanks to those records showing medical issues, an autopsy was not necessary.
I was greatly relieved to do this for him, prevent the indignity, and spare his son and daughter the agony of having the coroner perform such an invasive procedure on their dad.
Soon after, my nephew called me in a panic. Had I heard what happened? What happens next? I reassured him that the family plot in New Jersey had a gravesite available; he need not worry about that. I knew that place all too well. My grandparents, my aunt, and my father were already there.
Fighting through the shock and sadness of my brother’s sudden death at age fifty-eight, I arranged for the funeral and found a rabbi from our home town to perform the service. Our mother Rose at age ninety was too fragile to travel. My niece and nephew flew up from Florida the next day. I was touched that several of our cousins showed up to pay their respects as Stuart was not particularly close with them. My niece and nephew were comforted by support of the extended family and the memories of growing up that we shared. I was moved by their show of respect and their commitment to family.
Our grandparents had instilled strong family loyalty in all of us, and those ties held.
Even after fifteen years, I grieve for the loss of my brother, dying alone on the floor of an airless office. Hurricane Wilma had ravaged Florida from west coast to east, finally dissipating on October 27th. Southeast Florida experienced floods, power outages, injuries, deaths. I do not know the circumstances of my brother’s last night alive, but I can’t help but wonder if it was related to the storm. I suspect that the power had been out and the ventilation system broken. The extreme physical stress must have been too much for him to withstand.
Stu had telephoned me at my law office late on the day before. I was wrapping up business for the week and asked my daughter, a new college grad helping out for a brief stint, to take the call from her uncle. She let me know that he was just calling to say hi and didn’t insist on talking to me. I’m grateful that the last person he talked to was a family member. My daughter remembers his comment, “It’s hurricane alley down here”.
I ordered the bronze plaque to be placed at the gravesite:
Stuart Lawrence Weiner
9/15/1947 to 10/29/2005
Beloved Son, Father, Grandfather, Brother
After I returned home, I felt deeply anxious about telling our mother that Stuart had passed. Rose lived in a senior housing complex. She repeated questions—What time is it? What day is it?—and was somewhat forgetful, but nothing more.
Each time I visited my mom during the next month, I left without telling her about Stuart’s death. I couldn’t bring myself to see the look on her face when I told that her son had died. I was a mother too.
When I finally did, she responded with tears that her brother Joey had died. I told her a few more times that no, it was Stuart, that Joey was gone years ago. Our conversation went around in circles and she never let in the information. After a short while I yielded, accepting that I could not break through the barrier of her confusion and denial combined.
I understood then that her dementia was further along than I had realized. And that it spared her from suffering this unimaginable loss.
Mom and I looked at family photos together for years after—she lived for another eight years to nearly ninety-nine. I put together a family history album when I placed her in a nursing facility after an injury impaired her further. We enjoyed many happy afternoons talking about the relatives in the pictures, including my brother. Whether dead or alive made no difference. In the moment, they were real to her, and made her happy.
My mother managed to live with the unexplained absence of her child, but for me, so much still puzzled me about my brother. The missing parts — and the missing years — remained in the shadows. I hadn’t seen him for nearly ten years before he died — and I needed to make peace with the reasons for that.
(to be continued)
Barrie, you have a wonderful way of conveying your love for your family in your writing. Thank you for sharing this.
Barrie, I’m glad you’ve written this piece about Stuart’s death and I’m glad you’re going to write more about him. Our cousins chat this afternoon brought us feeling closer together as we talked about our parents and grandparents on the Weiner side of the family.
As usual, your writing is excellent and conveys a lot of feeling in a restrained way. There’s so much to say and think about in our family history. And no one ever talks about Stuart so I’m very glad that you’re doing so.
So sorry for your loss, Barrie. My brother died last June; so my heart understands.
Barrie, this is a very intriguing and poignant story about your brother, and I await eagerly the sequel. I didn’t think that this was going to end up being a cliffhanger. Thank you so much for sharing. By the way, my mother-in-law was in her nineties and in a nursing home when her son, whom I found out later was actually her stepson, died. He lived out of state and had after some years discontinued his regular visits. So she didn’t give him a lot of thought, I don’t believe. So my husband and his brother decided that they wouldn’t tell her about the death which was also very sudden. She died a couple of years later.
This is particularly poignant. Your writing is very beautiful.
Please accept my deepest condolences.
Once again, so sorry for your untimely loss. It is good therapy for you to be able to put your feelings into words. A very moving piece of writing.
Really well written. Thank you for the moving account. Condolences.
Thank you for sharing this ms barrie 🧡🧡🧡🧡❤️❤️ I’ll call my brothers now. Lots of love to you.
There was so much the cousins did not know about Stuart when he was older so I am glad you are sharing his story with us. When he visited my house with his two little kids, he appeared to be a loving caring father. He presented them proudly and they were certainly adorable. I look forward to hearing more about him, in your beautiful words.
It is so wrenching to lose a sibling. This is told with such love and respect for the meaning of family.
Whewww Barrie, I feel like I’m privy to a catharsis in motion. Currently mid stream, so many things that for now seem shrouded in mystery and uncertainty appear to be headed for an ultimate resolve in part two. You are a natural lantern bearer, leading the way, shining the light on life’s more oblique and difficult chapters. This is courage in motion too.
Barrie, Your writing is so eloquent and seems to come easily. I so look forward to the next chapter about your brother. It’s beautifully written and probably a bit difficult for you to write about. Thank you for sharing.
It’s hard for me to imagine how difficult it must have been to lose a sibling; I often think about this when you talk about Stuart.
I didn’t know that your mother was unable to take in that Stuart had died. It’s such a difficult call, knowing what to say when the person you are telling is physically, mentally, or emotionally fragile. In my family, we had a similarly difficult decision to make around my uncle’s death and my mother, in her mid-90s at the time. There, too, her failing mental abilities seemed to cushion the blow.