Brother Robert's Death

 I had been at my brother Robert's home for several weeks prior to his dying. He was very social, holding elaborate dinners for family and friends. His son, Joe, was up from Florida. Joe worked as a chef at Disney. He had Joe make special dishes. Robert would send both of us to stores to get ingredients and other things. 

I was sitting in living room area of the house. Robert's hospital bed was across the room in what might have been the dinning room area. It was an open floor plan with another "rec" room to the right of his bed. Basically, from my vantage point Robert was in full view.

The house was filled with guests, family & friends. I was about to get up and go to Robert's bedside but his brother-in-law was talking to me I was too polite to interrupt, getting up to go across the room. A minute of two later, there were gasps from the bed. I was peeved that, after taking care of Bob for so many days, I was not at his bedside at the moment of death.

There were several people around his bed; I only remember sister Susan being there. That was a good thing; she was very close to our brother. 

Did I lift Robert's eyelid to see his eyes? I think so. I had not seen brother Richard's eyes after death; I was curious. I believe the eyes are windows to our soul, thus when soul leaves body, what do eyes look like? Robert's unseeing eyes looked the same as they ever did. 

Whomever came to collect his body shooed everyone into a bedroom. I refused to go. They said I had to. Instead I went outside to have a cigarette. I snuck around the back of the house so I could peer in the windows and watched as they placed his body in a body bag.

One of his daughter's my niece felt I was wrong to disobey. She felt it would be traumatic to see the body being put into the bag. It was not traumatic to me. I saw it done often on TV shows, and wanted to watch it in real life. Whatever. 

I do not know if I gave Robert permission to die. I do not think we talked about his impending death at all. I remember when a cousin visited and was talking about going fishing and stuff. I thought that weird; I mean Robert knew he was on death's door and I think cousin did as well. Yet Robert seemed to enjoy the banter. Again, whatever.