In loving memory of a wild man

Some hearts never die

Mar 06, 2024

Seven years have passed since my wild and beautiful brother’s heart stopped beating. Our dad was there to greet him on the other side, I hope, and since then our mother and his son Eric have joined him.

Marsi, Chris and Laura at a Kansas concert

I was rocking his cradle when I was just over a year old myself. Besides our parents, he was the one human who knew me my entire life. We had so many adventures together. We shared a love of the mountains and desert where we grew up, of fishing and camping and roughing it.

In our teens, we butted heads. But we grew close as adults, especially the last year of his life, when he called me nearly every day, and I visited him monthly in Pennsylvania, where he moved after divorcing his second wife. She turned out to be a gold digger murderess who tried to poison him when he didn’t die quickly enough of stage four cancer, in hopes of inheriting property he owned.

He and his first wife had two sets of twins - first boys, one of whom died before birth, and then girls. He was so proud of all of them. When he became a grandfather, he was prouder still.

He was kind of an unruly boy-man. He rarely cut his hair, loved motorcycles, hitch hiking, playing music and frisbee, and smoking weed. And yet he had a strong faith in God that helped him through a number of challenges throughout his life.

Chris was complicated. He could be whimsical one minute and introspective the next. He earned a college degree in geology but chose to drive a truck for a living. He was a talented musician, but lacked confidence in his proficiency.

An animal lover through and through, he’d spend his last dime to aid a helpless creature. His various pets included dogs, cats, snakes, lizards, a raccoon named Jessie, and a baby alligator when we were kids. I accidentally killed the latter by feeding him too big a fish while Chris was in the hospital having surgery. I didn’t think he’d ever forgive me. But he did. He had a beautiful heart.

He waged an epic battle with cancer, living every single day of his 8 year fight with joy and acceptance, after being given six months to live in 2009. I’ll never forget the look of bliss on his face when we stopped at a Dairy Queen one day, and they had cherry dilly bars.

The summer before he died, he drove from Pennsylvania to Michigan to pack his beloved pickup truck full of his belongings and take them back with him. He had lost so much weight; I don’t know how he summoned the strength to do it, but he was determined to survive, and to have his treasures nearby.

At his request, I made a video of his life with a soundtrack he loved, and he watched it daily at his hospice home. Bill and I delivered his favorite red velvet cake on his last birthday, just after Christmas. Two months later, he fell, and his bones shattered.

But my brother, my friend, died around 4 p.m. on a cold, sunny Sunday afternoon seven years ago today. Our younger sister Laura was with him, and described the crows (which he loved) outside the window when he died. No angels carrying his spirit to heaven; he had an escort suiting his wild and sometimes crazy heart. But if you knew him, you sensed the innocence within him. Gone much too soon, I love and miss you - ride high, little brother.