To My Dearest Brother

Don’t do it, my dearest Farooq,

Let this pain find a way to mend.

I know it feels like endless night,

But even darkness bows to light.

Your heart is heavy, full of ache,

Wounds unseen but real, not fake.

Yet you are more than all this pain,

A soul too bright to lose in rain.

So hold my hand, don’t slip away,

I’ll stand beside you, come what may.

Let me share your hurt, your sorrow,

Stay with me—let’s find tomorrow.

You are loved, so deeply true,

The world is warmer with you.

This is a hard one to write, but of course remember I must and write I must. My baby brother, whose life was shortened when he took his own life due to bipolar disorder in 1991 at the age of 26, would have been 50 on October 3rd. The loss and sadness never diminish. The what ifs never go away. The mind and the heart cry out against the injustice of it. Such a sweet, loving, intelligent, beautiful person. How could we have lost him so prematurely? Why didn’t someone, the doctors, the social workers, the psychologists, why did no one help him? How were we, his family, unable to help him? I was living in Little Rock, Arkansas at the time, and had just come back from Buffalo, trying to help my brother and my family cope with his illness. How I wish I had stayed. Maybe I could have saved him. The last thing he said to me before I left was “Now I’m going to miss you.” And I’d told him I’d be back soon. The very last thing he said to me on the phone, a few days before he left us for good was I love you. Three heartbreaking little words. Oh how I miss you Farooq, My little brother. Oh how I will miss you the rest of my days.
It seems like a dream when we had him in our midst. This adored, lovely, strikingly handsome, loving, sensitive, young man, you left us too soon. You didn’t see your little girl grow up to be a doctor. You didn’t see your little boy grow up to be a handsome, young personal trainer.
Yes the toll bipolar disorder takes is a heavy one. An almost unbearable one.
He is the reason I am going to work on bipolar disorder in a lab, and I so hope we can find something through this research that will help other people with this awful disease. The help that my brother never got. Goodnight Sweet Prince. My beloved sweet, little Farooq.