The Shock

I recall it being a summer morning, maybe the end of June. I had graduated from high school, our two older sisters had gone off to university, and our eldest brother had married and become a dad. As a family we had built a bigger house and my bedroom window faced the little cement block cabin where Gary slept. Very early that morning, maybe 5:00 o'clock, I heard a wailing sound coming from the cabin. The eerie sound of my brother's voice went on for several minutes; I was kind of startled, maybe a bit scared, and lay there not knowing what to do. It was strange, but then it stopped, and it hadn't sounded like someone under attack, so I let it go. After all Mom sometimes cried out in her dreaming as well, so I just wrote it off as a weird event.

Later that day, a doctor appeared in our yard. I think I saw him talking to Dad and our brother Murray, but I didn't see anything else. Up to that point no one knew what Gary was going through. I found out from Gary just a couple of years ago that Dad had questioned some odd behavior while Gary was searching for where the voices were coming from, but he didn't let on what was happening; and recently he let me know that after searching, he went into isolation for a few days--no food or water--and was suffering in physical pain and mental torment.

Gary was diagnosed with Schizophrenia. It all happened quite quickly. From the moment of the high steady tone interrupting his thoughts to the day of the diagnosis, less than a week had passed. Someone (Dad, Murray, Mom??) told me many years later that when Dad and Murray went out to see what was going on, Gary said, "Don't move me! They just finished operating on my heart." He doesn't remember saying it, and he doesn't remember the wailing.

I know this all sounds tragic and it was, but don't worry--the miracle is coming!