My Brother

It’s too early in the morning to do anything useful, and I woke with my mind churning, churning, begging me to tell the Story of Steven.

I’ll be honest…I’ve always disliked telling Steven’s story. The people always listen, wide-eyed. “You adopted that poor boy from Kenya and gave him a family? How wonderful!” They ask for details and I give them sparingly, because it’s not my story, it’s Steven’s, and he always looked so uncomfortable when we pressed him for details about his past.

What I want to say now is not the story of Before his Adoption, but the story of After his Adoption. I want to talk about the way he was. I want to talk about the Christmas he gave me a glittery pen with feathers and a plastic crown. I’m sure it came from the dollar store but he was so excited to give it to me because he knew I was obsessed with princesses and fairy tales at the time. I want to talk about how we used to hang out in the spare room and click “play” on our VCR to watch whatever random VHS tape was inside late into the night. The way he laughed uproariously as we watched “Funny Girl” in this manner, the first time viewing it for both of us, and Fanny Brice came out on stage with the pillow under her wedding dress. I can’t even begin or else I’ll never stop…a million bajillion memories.

What if the memories slowly fade and go away, into the distant distance?

Go away, dark thoughts.

I probably should tell the story of how I’m doing, because so many of you have been praying, and I’ve been so desperate for prayers I can’t even explain.

Sunday, November 2, I went to church in the morning and then came home. David and Rebecca Morton, the older couple I live with, always go to his brother’s house Sunday afternoons, while I come home and bum around doing my laundry and reading books or whatever I feel like doing. This Sunday was no different, except then, just as I was about to take a Sunday afternoon nap, my mom called.

“Hey, what’s up?” I asked cheerfully.

And then my mom said something, and my dad was there too, and he said “we have terrible news.”

Steven had passed away suddenly and mysteriously, just that morning. He was very sick over the weekend, and then he collapsed, and was gone. “Are you alone?” they said.

“Yes, but I’ll call a friend.”

“Okay. We still need to call the other siblings.”

Of course I was weeping by this point but I also thought it was some kind of terrible joke. No way this was real. I’ll admit that I have learned how to wake myself up from dreams, and I did the tactics in real life just in case it would work (it didn’t). I called Annie Sells and she said she’d come right away, and then Esta sent a text and said she was with my parents and I could call her any time, so I did, and I talked to her until the Mortons got home and then Annie came shortly after.

Esta told me a few things. The police came to church and told my parents just after the service was over. Esta, my aunt Rosie, and my cousin Justin and his wife Kayla were there and took my parents next door to my aunt Rosie’s house.

I just kind of sat-around all afternoon and evening feeling terrible but being decently fine I guess. I mean, if I cried it was a normal grief cry. The Mortons got my ticket home for me. Eventually Annie had to go home and put her baby to bed and I was so tired I thought I’d just go to bed early. I didn’t know how any of this worked. I didn’t know that being alone was when all the dark thoughts would rush in.

Did we really adopt him from Kenya just for him to die tragically anyway? Why couldn’t we save him from that?

My family will never be whole ever again.

Scrolling Instagram reels stopped the thoughts and the uncontrollable crying but you can’t scroll Instagram reels forever. I needed sleep. How? I ended up finding a Malcolm Guite YouTube video and just listening to it, not even watching it.

I actually slept decently well, which was a blessing, but I woke up ka-bam! at 6 am which is several hours earlier than usual. Again, I dissolved into tears and dark thoughts, but thankfully the Mortons got up pretty soon after that and I asked Rebecca to just sit in my room with me while I packed. In this way I was sort-of okay.

This is when I began to think that I might really not be okay flying home by myself. I know people will say “feel your feelings! It’s okay to fall to pieces!” but at this point my thoughts were so dark and all-consuming that it didn’t feel like healthy grief. It felt more like a panic attack. And, like, you can’t just fall all to pieces in an airport. You have to do things like find your gate and stand with your boarding group. That’s when I started desperately asking for prayer from my co-workers and on Instagram.

I started losing it as soon as I left the Mortons at the airport and started through security. I called Esta at my gate and she calmed me down somewhat.

“What do I do if I start getting that panicky feeling?” I asked.

“Does it feel like grief, or does it feel like panic?”

“It feels like panic, clutching at me, making me hyperventilate.”

“Okay. You need to tell yourself that it’s a wave that you can let wash over you, and it will pass.”

That was helpful. I was calmed down sufficiently to survive my first flight, which was a much-delayed hop on a wee little plane to Chicago. I was in a bit of a hurry because my connection was slightly tight, but I thought it would be fine. Only, when I went to get off, my carryon suitcase wasn’t where I’d left it, and that flipped my switch into NOT OKAY and I lost it.

The flight attendants found my bag. They’d moved it to fit everything in right and knew where it was, but they looked worried because I was clearly NOT OKAY and asked if they could get me water. I didn’t know how to explain. “No thanks I’m going to a funeral,” I blurted through my tears, as though that would make sense, and I grabbed my bag with its pathetic little handle that doesn’t extend all the way and made for my next gate.

So there I was, on the endless walk to my next gate, absolutely losing it, wiping my face with a sodden napkin I’d swiped from a restaurant I passed, crying and hyperventilating, and feeling so alone because I was surrounded by people doing nothing when suddenly this woman rushed up next to me. “You’re not okay. Can I give you a hug? What happened?”

She wrapped me in a big warm hug that smelled of cigarette smoke, and the dam burst. “My brother died suddenly and I’m going home for the funeral!” I wailed.

She held me, so warm, tight, and comforting. “He’s in a better place. The Lord is with us. Can I get you a wheelchair?”

Let me tell you, I was so broken and all caps NOT OKAY that I said “yes” to the wheelchair, and she set me down on a stool and went running off with my boarding pass. Then she came back and said they were getting a wheelchair for me. It took a bit for the wheelchair to come and the wheelchair man frowned over his iPad for a bit and then said, “oh, we have to hurry, they’re already boarding.”

So then he wheeled me that insanely long distance to the next gate, up and down service elevators full of cleaning ladies where he had to scan his thumb to even use it, and as he pushed me through the crowd I felt like I was playing Mario Kart, dodging people and wishing I could go faster.

He pushed me right up to the lady scanning boarding passes. I checked my watch. It was three minutes until the gate closed, but I made it. But all be honest, I wasn’t even that worried, because my brain kept saying “who cares? The worst thing has already happened.”

Somehow, the flights were easier for me than the airports. I held it together on the flight to Denver with relative ease. And as my carryon was right where I’d left it, I de-boarded the airplane without tears or hyperventilating. But I had several hours in Denver and I wasn’t okay. I could feel in my body that I wasn’t okay, and I had this terrible fear of sitting all by myself thinking dark thoughts and weeping uncontrollably.

Then, I saw some Mennonites. I was so not-okay that my inhibitions were gone. “Excuse me,” I said. “My name is Emily, um, maybe you’ve read some of my mom’s books. Have you read any of Dorcas Smucker’s books?”

“Yes,” said the woman, looking a bit confused.

“Well anyway I don’t know if you’ve heard but my brother Steven just died suddenly and I’m going home for the funeral and I’m really not okay and I wondered if I could sit with you and if you could pray for me.”

So the woman—her name was Miriam—got up and gave me a hug, and then she and her husband prayed for me. I wasn’t crying but I was shaking, but after the prayers I just sat there with them and I was okay. No more shaking. I was deeply grateful for that. We just talked about whatever. Miriam and her husband were on their way to the country of Georgia as missionaries. He was reading the Apocrypha so I talked to him some about that, since my church just had a Sunday school session about the Apocrypha.

Anyway. I don’t remember their last names but if you know them please tell them that meant a lot. They were from a Nationwide church in Utah.

I was about 10 gates away from my gate, so I said goodbye eventually and walked down to board my last flight to Eugene. As I stood in line to board, another young Mennonite woman came up to me. She said, “are you Emily Smucker?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Can I give you a hug?”

“Yes, please,” I wept. So she wrapped me in a big hug and then I got on my flight. I didn’t even get her name but THANK YOU to whoever you were.

The last flight was fine. I got home and Esta picked me up. Bless Esta! Then home, home, to my family. Jenny. Ben. Mom. Dad. Matt and Phoebe came the next afternoon, and Jenny and I drove up to Portland that evening to pick up Amy. Thank the Lord, Amy and Jenny were both able to hold it together much better on their flights than I was, which I was so grateful for, because I hated to think of anyone going through that ordeal.

I’m still in the middle of the worst week of my life, but I cannot describe how much better things are now that I’m with my family. I started this post writing about Steven, but really, I wanted to tell you all about my harrowing journey here so that you’d understand how much your prayers meant to me, and still mean to me. Whenever tragic things happened to other people, I’d always feel bad that all I had to offer was prayers. But now I feel so desperate to have people praying for me, I can’t even describe it.

So thank you. Maybe I’ll tell you more about Steven so other day.