July 20th at a little after 2:30pm, one year ago my life changed in a profound way. Those who know me well know that I over-think everything. That means this post will be rewritten too many times before I finally post it. Writing/talking things out helps me work through what I am thinking, but getting it down in a coherent way that I am willing to make public is harder.
Jeff was unemployed at the time and therefore at home. We were snuggling and talking with the little kids when I got the call. I couldn't believe the words Deborah, my brother's ex-wife, was saying. She told me that she just wanted me to know that Jonathan had died that day. She then went on and on in her usual way of filling the silence talking about a police detective who wouldn't talk to her about the details and therefore wouldn't talk to me (so don't bother calling), about how she would take care of everything because she was the beneficiary, I think she started talking about the details of how/where she would have my brother's remains cared for, then she asked if I heard that she and Jonathan were reconciling. That snapped me out of my fog because Jonathan and I had discussed the "reconciliation" and it was not what she was describing. He needed a place to stay because he was going to lose his house (because of her actions that cost him his security clearance and a good chunk of his salary - something I learned of later) and figured since he was paying for the house she lived in he might as well move in there. He had no intention of reconciling with her, but wanted to be there for his son. When he told me he was going to talk to her I encouraged him to make it clear he was not 'getting back together' but needed to live in the house - their marriage ended after 3 years because of her viscous verbal abuse which continued after the divorce. I may have started arguing with her, but ended up ignoring the tangent she was on and insisted on getting the detective's name and phone number from her. She begrudgingly complied warning me the detective would not speak with me.
The detective did not answer, so I left a message. Then I sent an email asking for prayers for my brother's soul. In between my short bouts of writing or talking I was crying. While I waited for the police detective to call me back I searched desperately online hoping to find news about a car crash or fire, something anything but what I knew had happened.
Jonathan always had a very hard time in social situations. He could not read body language and didn't understand empathy. In talking with him he would go off on tangents for hours about topics that interested him without any prompting - or interest sometimes - from his listeners. He was so very smart when it came to matters of book knowledge and so very lost when you had to add in the human factor. He told me once that even the thought of having to make small talk with others caused him physical pain. It wasn't that he didn't like people, on the contrary he needed that connection with others, it was just that his way of connecting was so different than the norm that it was off-putting for most people. I'm sure there is some kind of fancy label that could have been applied to him, but it doesn't really make a difference now.
In 2001 my entire family had to move from the large house in the South Bay Area in California, so my sister went to Oregon for college, Jeff and I and the kids followed (it was my idea first!), my parents stayed with friends to get back on their feet, my uncle moved into his own apt and Jonathan headed out to Virginia. Even with 3,000 miles between us I remember spending hours on the phone with Jonathan even in those first few months when he was staying with our aunt out in VA. As my family grew over the years, it became harder to have hours available to talk with him. In 2004 Jonathan decided it was time to get married because he was lonely in Maryland (where he had bought a house), so he joined a match-making company hoping it would work out. He wanted a Catholic woman who was loyal to Church teaching esp on things like contraception and abortion because he was so very pro-life. That one thing cut his list down to nothing. They kept setting him up on dates anyway, probably to justify their paycheck, and nothing was working out. Jonathan was frustrated and added in young adult gatherings that a local Catholic parish had. That is where he met Deborah. He was so excited when she called him back. That was his reason for marrying her - she had to be interested in him because she called him back. He had been rejected by so many people throughout his life that he couldn't believe she was interested in him after one conversation (that included his annual income as a networking engineer with a high security clearance and current business/get-rich-quick scheme). I was happy for him because he was happy. Jonathan felt things very deeply, but he wasn't very good about sharing those emotions with others. He also wasn't the most patient of people. On the one hand he used his incredible mind to plot and plan every detail of various schemes and ideas he had but on the other hand he wanted things done immediately when he decided it was time to move. Getting kids ready to go or the time to put them in carseats when we went somewhere with him would make him crazy. Anyway, after about 6 months of dating, Jonathan proposed to Deborah. The description he gave me of her was that she clipped coupons and was very careful with money, she called him regularly, she cared about her 11 year old son and was a good single mom and she was Catholic. She might not be as good a Catholic as he was hoping for, but he had no luck finding a good Catholic anyway. The other thing he said that sticks out in memory was that he could "save" her and her son by providing and caring for them. I think all men want to be the knight in shining armor, and my brother was no different. Our father left our mom with 3 small children and my step-dad had a lot of issues, so I think Jonathan wanted to try and make up for our crappy childhood. During their marriage prep a few warning signs started popping up, and they started fighting over those things. I spoke with her a few times and realized very quickly that they were not a good match. My mom realized the same thing and we tried warning Jonathan, but he had made up his mind to go forward. A few weeks before the wedding, Jonathan told me the honeymoon period was over. I tried warning him of how hard the marriage would be if everything he thought about her was wrong and they were already unhappy, but he was not willing to stop things. They got married in 2005 and problems arose almost immediately. Deborah had lived at her parents house and worked full time throughout her parenting experience, and as someone who did the same thing for a while, it is a hard adjustment to suddenly be a nuclear family. Poor Michael did not adjust well and Deborah disagreed with my brother on how to parent Michael. Once Michael made a few mistakes and ended up in the juvenile system, everything got worse. Through a difficult pregnancy, the housing market collapse, a disastrous attempt at being landlords, out of control spending and very different approaches to life and Catholicism, the marriage failed. Jonathan moved out in Jan 2009 after a particularly bad argument that caused him to call 911 to have the police there to protect him as he gathered his things and left. He continued to pay the bills and gave Deborah a few hundred dollars every month for things for David (their 2 year old son), but told her she would need to get a job to cover the rest (something they had been fighting over for months). Jonathan was devastated. He didn't understand why things got so bad, so just before leaving his marriage he left the Church. He told me it wasn't that he thought the Church was wrong, it was that he just didn't care about doing the "right" thing anymore. He had lived his entire life doing the "right" thing, and he had nothing good to show for it. The therapist he had been seeing for about a year had put him on anti-depressants and that definitely changed his personality and outlook on life. His phone calls came farther and farther apart, and were more cryptic. He told me that he had his faith in God restored, but didn't want to talk about what had happened. Then in Sept 2009 our grandma died rather suddenly and no one could get in touch with Jonathan. I began to worry, but continued living life. Then in January Jonathan called me. We had never been out of touch for so long. He told me that he had had a mental break and that he had ended up committing himself back in Sept because he was afraid he would hurt himself. He was there for a few weeks and felt like he was doing ok now. I encouraged him to get in touch with his closest friend from before his marriage who was a priest to talk about the demonic aspect of what he was describing. The way my brother described what was going on with him reminded me of Screwtape Letters. It was as if he could actually hear the angel and demon whispering in his ear. It sounded a lot like demonic obsession (as opposed to demonic possession). Whether there is a scientific/medical explanation for it or not, it doesn't change that it could have been happening. He had been taking anti-psychotic medication and was seeing his therapist regularly, which is why I suggested adding the spiritual to that routine. I spent hours everyday in the beginning talking to Jonathan because he said the voices didn't bother him as much when we talked. As time went on, the conversations would happen every few days and as he spent more and more time at our Aunt and Uncle's house there would be longer gaps between calls. During all of this, Jonathan did his best to keep Deborah out of the loop because he knew she would use it against him - he would have me listen to the angry, mean calls that would come in when we were on the phone (he called through his computer to avoid paying long distance charges) for hours. He started going to Mass again and became close to the pastor at the Benedictine church he could walk to from his house. He had been doing day trading for about a year or so to support both households and was doing pretty well with it. Things were looking up. Then somehow Deborah got enough details of his mental state to call his work and inform them that he had mental problems. Since his job required a high security clearance, they revoked his clearance until an investigation could be done. He was moved to another building and his pay was cut. He was also switched to a day shift, so he was working around a lot of people which has always caused him problems. After another stint in the hospital (one where he could call and let me know what was going on), he was moving forward. He gave the investigators all they needed and they were sure that his clearance would be reinstated since his issues were not going to affect national security.
July 20th, 2010. It had been about 3 weeks since I had heard from Jonathan. Our last conversation had been about money. The stock market was not doing well, so he had lost a lot of money. He could no longer afford to support both houses, was looking at having to declare bankruptcy and he wanted to spend more time with his son David, so he figured he could move back into the house since he was paying for it anyway. I cautioned him to be careful since the mean phone calls had continued and he had been so miserable when he was there before. He assured me he would be cautious.
As I waited for the detective to call me back, I knew. I knew he had killed himself. My brother who had spent almost his entire life doing the right thing. He had been a good Catholic, even when it was hard (other than the 1 year). He
got it. He understood Faith even when there were so many things in life he didn't get. He knew so much - most of my Catholic education had been from him. If it weren't for his influence I don't know if I would be Catholic today. How, how could the Devil win with someone like Jonathan? It wasn't fair, more than that, the thought was unbearable.
The detective called me back as soon as she finished talking to my mom. She apologized for Deborah calling me. She had called Deborah (even though the divorce was finalized) to get phone numbers for our family and Deborah had been uncooperative. She had asked Deborah not to call anyone, and that she would handle things. The detective had to search my brother's things to find the phone numbers which sadly gave Deborah enough time to start calling people. Since Deborah had never liked my mom much (or maybe it was because she knew how much time Jonathan and I spent talking), she called me first so thankfully the detective was able to be the one to call my mom. Not only had Jonathan killed himself, he had done it very publicly at work - something way out of character. He was such a private person, he handled things on his own as much as possible. It just didn't make any sense. There was no evidence that he had planned to kill himself, and the detective was at a loss as to what pushed him over the edge. She felt in her gut there was more to it, but she could not prove anything. The next few months were spent sorting out Jonathan's affairs as much as possible. My mom as next of kin flew out and stayed with my aunt and uncle while dealing with everything. Since she is disabled, they had to do a lot to help her. If it weren't for their support I don't think my mom would have been able to function. There were little things we discovered that gave us hope for his soul - there was absolutely no sign of planning suicide, he had even just gone grocery shopping and ordered something from Amazon before he died. My mom found and talked to the priest Jonathan had been to regularly. He said Jonathan had been working to get better and that he had been to Confession regularly. The list goes on.
Since Jonathan had talked to me about wanting to move out to Oregon to be closer to family (once he got a more favorable custody arrangement and got his finances sorted out), we decided to bury him out here. Throughout all of this, Deborah was livid. She felt she should be in charge of everything and was not happy that as an ex-wife she had no claim. She had recently been named the sole beneficiary on all Jonathan's insurance policies, and we were not fighting that. We just wanted to bury Jonathan out here close to family who loved him. Deborah refused to be helpful in any way and would not let my mom see her grandson whom she had never met. My mom did her best while mourning her son, getting nasty calls from Deborah and resistance from my brother's bank and work to settle his estate. There wasn't much because of how much debt Jonathan had, but she did the best she could. Deborah ended up suing my mom to take over as administrator, so my mom came back out here to Oregon (my dad had moved up here the summer before and my mom had been taking care of her dad after my grandma died) and we buried Jonathan before the court date. Deborah won the case and was appointed administrator. She started calling every place we paid (for the cremation, burial, the church where the Funeral Mass was said, shipping his personal affects, etc) to harass them about how much money was spent and how she was not happy that nothing could be done. From the bank accounts that were pay-on-death and therefore not part of the estate and the insurance, Deborah should have gotten about $350,000. Jonathan's estate was about $8,000 which barely covered administrative costs, burial expenses and shipping. Every now and then I hear rumors that Deborah plans to sue my mom over the $8,000, but so far nothing has happened.
The last year has been a roller coaster. I feel like I lost a year. I can think of all the things I did, but it doesn't feel like I was living those memories, just going from thing to thing. I think I am doing better now. I still have off days, but overall I feel like I am starting to live again. I pray for Jonathan's soul regularly and hope that someday I can ask him what happened. In the meantime I plan to thwart the devil in any way I can, and maybe I can help get a few more souls out of his clutches along the way - just the way Jonathan would have wanted it.
