MEG AND I ATTENDED the WellChild Awards, an annual event that honored children suffering from serious illnesses. October 2019.
I’d attended many times through the years, having been a royal patron of the organization since 2007, and it was always gutting. The children were so brave,
their parents so proud—and tortured. Various awards were given that night for inspiration, fortitude, and I was presenting one to an especially resilient preschooler.
I walked onstage, began my brief remarks, and caught sight of Meg’s face. I thought back to a year ago, when she and I attended this event just weeks after taking that home pregnancy test. We’d been filled with hope, and worry, like all expectant parents, and now we had a healthy little boy at home. But these parents and children hadn’t been so lucky. Gratitude and sympathy converged in my heart, and I choked up. Unable to get the words out, I held the lectern tight and leaned forward. The presenter, who’d been a friend of my mother, stepped over and gave my shoulder a rub. It helped, as did the burst of applause, which gave me a moment to restart my vocal cords. Soon after, I got a text from Willy. He was in Pakistan on tour. He said I was clearly struggling, and he was worried about me.
I thanked him for his concern, assured him I was fine. I’d become emotional in front of a roomful of sick kids and their folks just after becoming a father myself—nothing abnormal in that.
He said I wasn’t well. He said again that I needed help.
I reminded him that I was doing therapy. In fact, he’d recently told me he wanted to accompany me to a session because he suspected I was being “brainwashed.”
Then come, I said. It will be good for you. Good for us.
He never came.
His strategy was patently obvious: I was unwell, which meant I was unwise.
As if all my behavior needed to be called into question.
I worked hard at keeping my texts to him civil. Nonetheless, the exchange turned into an argument, which stretched over seventy-two hours. Back and forth we went, all day, late into the night—we’d never had a fight like that over text before. Angry, but also miles apart, as if we were speaking different languages. Now and then I realized that my worst fear was coming true: after months of therapy, after working hard to become more aware, more independent, I was a stranger to my older brother. He could no longer relate to me—tolerate me.
Or maybe it was just the stress of the last few years, the last few decades, finally pouring out.
I saved the texts. I have them still. I read them sometimes, with sadness, with confusion, thinking: How did we ever get there?
In his final texts, Willy wrote that he loved me. That he cared for me deeply.
That he would do whatever is needed to help me.
He told me to never feel any other way.
