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My brother Simon, 10 years younger than me, is dying of pulmonary fibrosis. We have spent the last several weeks caring for him in Wakefield, England.
During this time I’ve been thinking of relationships between brothers, one of whom is dying. This has helped me, mentally and emotionally – but only partly….
The poet John Keats tended his younger brother Tom, who was dying of TB (tuberculosis). In Sonnet 8, Keats writes:
“This is your birthday, Tom, and I rejoice/ That thus it passes smoothly, quietly:/ Many such eves of gently whisp’ring noise/ May we together pass, and calmly try/ What are this world’s true joys – ere the great voice,/ From its fair face shall bid our spirits fly.”
Keats sent brief reports to his sister and friends, optimistically recording any slight improvement in Tom’s condition. He traced the sad curve of an inevitable decline. His nursing kept Keats so busy and so distressed that he was unable to accept any kindness from others. “Keats’ own vitality seemed to be absorbed by the dying Tom.” (Gittings, p.385)
When Tom died on December 1 1818, Keats was simply heart-stricken and worn out. He was now worried about his own health and his weak lungs. His anxiety was also added to by his unfulfilled love for Fanny, the ‘Bright Star’ of the poem – and the film.
Bonds between brothers can be especially strong, as is also the case of Vincent and Theo Van Gogh. The 4-year older Vincent was a lifelong intimate friend of Theo’s. They were more like twins, and corresponded regularly with each other: 668 of Vincent’s letters are addressed to his brother, confidant, companion and double. Theo supported and encouraged Vincent, the impoverished artist: he arranged for Vincent to have his own bedroom at the St Rémy Asylum. Theo walked behind his bother’s coffin on July 29 1890, at Auvers-sur-Oise, in searing heat. There were sunflowers among the yellow flowers that were thrown onto his grave.
While arranging Vincent’s possessions that evening, Theo came across a folded paper in his brother’s jacket: “Well, my own work, I am risking my life for it and my reason has half foundered because of it – that’s all right…”
Grief-stricken, Theo died less than six months after the death of his beloved brother. He lies beside Vincent, at the edge of the cemetery, both with similar modest headstones.
Each time we’ve visited Auvers, we have made the solemn pilgrimage to their graves.
The Roman port Catullus made a long pilgrimage in 57 B.C. to near Troy in Asia Minor, where his brother had died. Poem 101 reads:
“Through foreign seas and over foreign lands,/ Brother, to your sad graveside I have come/ To lay the gifts of death with my own hands/ And speak, too late, some last words to your dumb,/ Unanswering dust. Poor bother, who was torn/ Brutally from me by ill fortune.”
Photographs: Sandra Milne-Skinner
