Nine years ago this week, my brother Bryan died in his sleep. His Requiem Mass took place on Lincoln’s Birthday.
His story is one worth telling, for any of you who are depressed, or in despair, or in denial, or questioning Our Lord and His mercy. I tell it more or less in the eulogy I wrote nine years ago.
“Bryan didn’t live what we consider a long life.
We his brothers and sister didn’t get to say good-bye. Bryan died in his sleep in the wee hours of Thursday morning a week ago. Ironically, he had taken the day off to pay his respects to a family friend who had died days earlier. Bryan’s boss called me the next day wondering if I knew where Bryan was. I authorized Bryan’s landlord to check on him, and he found him. A sheriff’s deputy, the paramedics, and a woman from the medical examiner’s office had the sad duty to confirm his death. It was our brother Sean’s sad duty to have Bryan transported for burial.
Bryan only lived a half a century, but he wasn’t supposed to make it this far. For those of you who don’t know, here’s his medical history:
He was born at six months gestation instead of nine. He had only one eye that saw, severe motor nerve damage, and considerable brain damage as well.
He nearly died at birth, he nearly died any number of times his first year of life.
He had emergency experimental shunt valve surgery because he had excess fluid on the brain. The first four children who underwent this surgery died. The fifth child who underwent this surgery lived, but was institutionalized, like the Kennedy girl.
Bryan was the sixth. They cut a piece out of Bryan’s skull, and put a valve there. They ran a tube down to his heart for suction.
Every few years he had to have the valve replaced, and the tubing lengthened as he grew. Bryan told me he wasn’t afraid of death because he could have gone at any time.
He lived, and to the best of his abilities, lived as normal a life as he could.
Our Lord said the well don’t need a doctor, the sick do.
You don’t make medical advances on the well, you make them on the sick.
Many children are alive today and are living decent lives because of the pain Bryan underwent with those surgeries. Doctors learned they were going in the right direction because of Bryan’s willingness to endure pain and keep fighting for life.
Everyone sold Bryan short, and lost their shirts.
Bryan was never supposed to learn to read, but he did. He was a bookworm’s bookworm.
Bryan was never supposed to get thru grade school, but he did.
Then they said he wouldn’t make it thru high school, but he did.
Mom and Dad got Bryan ready for adult life instead of abandoning him in an institution. They gave him no breaks of any kind, but expected him to pull his weight.
I came out West for a year after Mom and Dad died to give Bryan the last bit of help he needed to fly like a responsible adult.
I had Bry undergo a battery of motor skill and mental tests to see what precisely his problems could be. The nurse psychologist who evaluated Bry said he read at the college level and did math at the 8th grade level … which meant Bryan retained his business math abilities from high school. We said Bryan’s reading and math skills made him smarter than most of the people in Congress. Bryan knew enough math to know you can’t spend what you don’t have.
Bryan had childhood dreams, and he lived to achieve many of them, or at least get a taste of them.
When I was a little boy, Santa brought me an HO train set. Bryan sat with me for hours as I ran the little engine. When Bry was old enough, Santa came thru and brought him a Lionel set. And he and Sean would run that train. Bryan said he would be an engineer. I can’t count how many times Bryan and I would hang out in switching yards, watching the switch engines and the locomotives, watching the engineers build up trains. Or the time we nearly got blown off a train bridge over the Columbia River by a highballing freight because we wanted to check out trains and ships coming into Portland. Or the time Bryan and I went up to the California railroad park in the High Sierras and saw a real cultural landmark … the water tank the girls of Petticoat Junction skinny-dipped in.
Although he never became an engineer, Bryan made cross country trips by train, and he was looking forward to getting instruction on how to run a diesel engine … we were going to take him up to a training yard to do it. King Bryan’s throne room was the observation car of a cross country train. No railroad baron enjoyed the view better or hit the buffet harder than Bryan on a fast moving passenger train across this great country.
Then Roy Rogers convinced Bryan he ought to be a cowboy. How many of you remember Trigger, Nellie Belle, Pat Brady, Dale Evans, Bullet the dog? Or how about Bryan’s favorite TV show “FURY?” Bryan always wanted to be Joey, the boy who was able to tame and ride FURY at Jim Newton’s Broken Wheel Ranch.
We were out at a park when Bryan saw some young knuckleheads racing horses over stony ground. Bryan became irate over the mistreatment of the horses and popped out of the bushes in ambush, showering the bad guys with gravel to the face. Bryan did learn how to ride horses. And in the 2003 fires of San Diego County, Bryan got some panicking horses out of a stable near the fire line to save them from being burned. That’s a stunt I’m sure Roy and Dale and Joey … and Fury … would have approved of.
My wife and I bought a small farm so Bryan would have a place to live and work if he ever lost his job and couldn’t find anything good. But Bryan taught me a thing or three instead of the other way around. He advised me on getting an auger to plant the hundreds of fruit trees more easily. One spring he came back and helped with the spring planting of the vineyard and an acre of fruit trees, and picking out feeder lambs at the livestock auctions, then vaccinating the little darlings as they tried to spit out their worming pills. Bry walked around like Ben Cartwright once he came back west from viewing the family spread and directing his city slicker brother.
When I came home from the Army, I brought a word processor computer. It was like the HO train set all over again. Bryan had to have a computer of his own. Bryan loved computers, and learned how to build them, and worked awhile in a computer store. The day he died he was rebuilding a computer.
Bryan’s dream was to become a ranger, and he tasted a good part of the dream. Dad, Mr. Repucci, and the legendary conservationist Hal Fawcett taught Bryan conservation … tree planting, stream lapping, soil erosion management. Bryan worked awhile with the California Conservation Corps. He worked with the state park system, and with San Diego County Park system.
Bryan didn’t conduct nature walks, but he gave occasional info to tourists. And he gave impromptu help as a park lawman from time to time.
Bryan and another state park guy busted some Asians who were ripping out fiddlehead ferns at Mount Palomar. Bry said, “We allow American Indians to harvest some native plants during season with permits. But last time I checked, there are no Apaches in Korea.”
We kidded Bry because he always seemed to know where the hiding spots were when Mom and Dad called us for work. Bryan put that skill to use when he had to check on some work release dopers who were supposed to do some cleanup work at the park. Instead, they decided to hide and loaf. Bryan found them and narced them out. So they had to go back to the hole to finish their sentences.
Or there was the time Bryan became irate because some young vandals were tearing up a park bathroom. Bryan locked them in the bathroom, and the concrete kybo became a foul smelling holding tank for the miscreants until the sheriff’s deputies could take them into custody.
Bryan helped out at the soup kitchen his parish ran. His co-workers tell us Bryan would run his eye over those coming in for aid and would accused some of them of scamming the church and stealing from the needy. In fighting fraud, Bry would have made a much better HHS secretary than anyone Obama is considering picking.
Bryan also used to work the polls on Election days. During this last election, Bryan made several individuals take off their Obama shirts before he would let them vote. “The law is the law,” Bryan said. “No electioneering within 100 feet of the polls.”
Bryan was just as proud of these little acts upholding law and order at the park and at the polls as any policeman would be of putting in a good day of taking criminals off the street. We chuckle over them, but they brought Bryan pleasure to know he was contributing to society. He loved the parks and he loved the outdoors and he loved our country. He was sorry his medical problems kept him from enlisting in the armed services. It is the spark of nobility that should be in all of us to want to help others and make the nation a little better by our efforts.
Bryan had my back in 2006 and again in 2007 when we went to the parole board to ensure the murderers of our great-uncle Father Bernard Tobin stayed in prison awhile longer. We had not been getting parole application info on these vermin, and I decided a little unannounced visit to the state prison office in Sacramento would be the right touch. After we threw it up for grabs, the director apologized for the collective incompetence of his agency. I made him sign and date stamp all the documents to prove his problems. Bryan added just the right closing to the episode. When the director tried to shake his hand, Bryan gave him the evil eye and refused. He said, “People like you piss me off.” It was exactly the right touch. I had to keep a straight face, and I did until we left the building and got into our car. Then I collapsed in prolonged laughter.
At one of the hearings, Bryan seethed like an angry stallion while the parole officials and the murderer’s lawyer argued with me and I insulted all of them as I put on our case. The victims are not allowed to have a lawyer speak for them; but our attorney was there to make sure the parole officials didn’t try to railroad us. When the murderers’ lawyer alleged his poor disadvantaged son-of-a-bitch of a client had some disabilities, Bryan said nothing, but swelled up like a gorilla ready to knock down buildings in New York. You could hear him get ready to erupt. He said “What does that shyster know about handicaps? I’d like to handicap both him and his client!”
If Bry had a few less handicaps, I would not have only had a brother, but a co-conspirator!
Back in the day, the so-called experts advised Mom and Dad to put Bry in a home and have no more children. If they had listened, Bryan would be an invalid, and we wouldn’t have Lizzie or Sean.
Lizzie was our sister who died as a very young girl. Had Lizzie lived and been whole, she would have been a pretty brunette, a sweetheart, and a cheerful rival to our formidable sister Anita.
Lizzie, from her home in Heaven, has been working for us all these years. We had better be right with God if we intend to meet her.
Nowadays the so-called experts would advise an abortion because they’d say Bryan’s life wasn’t worth having.
Who the hell do those so-called experts, these bedwetting losers think they are?
We loved Bryan for who he was as he was. He enjoyed his life, and the world is a better place because he lived in it.
Because of his handicaps, Bryan had a sense of charity. He routinely bought papers from the handicapped or recovering addict vendors around town instead of from the store or the newsstand, because it helped them. He worked at the parish soup kitchen to help the needy. He told me there were many people in a lot worse shape than him who could use his help.
Bryan loved America and the great patriots. In a way, it is sadly fitting that Bry’s requiem Mass is on Lincoln’s Birthday. When I took Bryan to Gettysburg, he couldn’t get over the fact he was standing on the site of the Gettysburg Address.
Like Lincoln, Bry was a “malice toward none, charity toward all” guy. But few people know Lincoln also was a man of justice as well as mercy. In that same speech, Lincoln said words like, “We pray that this bloody civil war will end. But if every drop of blood drawn by the slaver’s lash has to be paid for with a drop of blood drawn by bullets or sabers, then we must prostrate ourselves before God and admit His judgment is just.”
No politician comes anywhere near that value system today. In fact, Bry used to say the Ten Commandments were banned from government buildings because the provisos against lying, adultery, perversion, stealing, atheism, and coveting created a hostile work environment for the lawyers, politicians, and bureaucrats.
Bryan developed a sense of perspective. In November 2006, Bry came out to see Notre Dame play my alma mater Army at South Bend. But first I took him to see Harpers Ferry (where John Brown seized the arsenal), Antietam battlefield nearby in Maryland (where Union victory made the Emancipation Proclamation possible), and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania (where Union victory made the saving of our nation a certainty, at least for as long as the majority in this country have the American spirit). We also stopped and saw the home of Civil War spy Belle Boyd in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and drove into the Shenandoah Valley among the apple orchards to the little drugstore in Winchester, Virginia, where Patsy Cline worked before she became a star, and visited with the old pharmacist, who was a co-worker of hers when she was young. He told us yarns about Patsy that only an old-time neighbor could tell.
After Bry took the train home, I asked him what he thought of the trip. He said it was great getting to see a ball game at Notre Dame, but it was more important to him that he visited Gettysburg and Antietam, where the heroes fought. Bry was a patriot. He got what was important.
Bryan was a good man, but he was no saint.
Like all of us, he was a sinner. But he was not a malicious guy. He didn’t hold grudges. He wasn’t a backstabber. Despite his handicaps he was a producer and a taxpayer, while many perfectly able bodied loafers and politicians parasite off of the public.
Bryan had to overcome his handicaps and learn how to retain material in school, learn the motor skills to cope with life, and do what he needed to do to earn his way in the world.
Bryan had to overcome self-pity for the lousy hand he was dealt in life and man up and learn in school and earn in real life.
Bryan had to develop pride and self-worth to deal with all the rude idiots out there who made life tough for him because of their innate shallowness and cruelty. Because of that kind of evil, there deserves to be a Hell … and by God there is a Hell!
Bryan had to develop faith in God to get through each day, knowing ever since he was a little boy he could drop dead in a heartbeat. It takes a special kind of moral courage to live like that and not despair.
Bryan was a test the rest of us had to pass also.
Dad made good money, but forked his paycheck over to doctors, hospitals, and child psychologists to help Bryan. Dad never showed any resentment toward Bryan for this.
Mom was one of the few moms who had to earn money outside the home in the 1960s and early 1970s, to help with the bills. She had to train Bryan and suffer heartbreak after heartbreak as he crashed and burned repeatedly.
We his brothers and sister had to learn to show Bryan love, not to pick on him, and defend him when the scum in life tried to hurt him. Dad pounded a junior high school gym teacher into dog meat because he mistreated Bryan. We followed Dad’s example and helped Bryan beat up his tormenters in the neighborhood.
My wife the Slavic Princess became Bryan’s intercessor when he wanted a favor from me. He would run it by her and enlist her support. She showed Bryan nothing but patience and love.
Our cousins, aunts, uncles, and family friends looked out for Bry also.
Nobody except Christ was perfect, and look how Our Lord was resented for that!
In fact, let’s examine our own consciences for a minute. Do we gossip, are we petty, do we backstab, are we bigoted, are we lazy? Are we selfish? Are we too egotistical …the wrong kind of proud? Do we promote quarreling instead of harmony and love in our marriages? Those are not things that make us closer to Our Lord.
Do we fail to love, give, and forgive within our capacity to do so?
I imagine, I hope, that no one in here is committing sins like calumny, cowardice, theft, exploitation, lechery, cruelty, physical abuse, perversion, or sexual abuse.
Everyone is judged on his or her merits against a very objective set of measurements. Did you do the will of God? Did you obey the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule? Did you love God, and did you love your neighbor as yourself?
Who among us can cast the first stone?
We as a society overlook piglike behavior in our celebrities and our leaders. Maybe it’s because we as a nation feel better being like the losers in the Jerry Springer audience or calling Laura Schlessinger like nitwits instead of trying to live like loyal children of God, made in His image and likeness, and His next of kin. If we all really lived our faith, we’d stick out in this Godless society like the Amish.
Every one of us one day is going to have to stand before God, Who gave us the gift of life, and defend how we made use of that gift.
Faith and works … believing in God, obeying Him, giving Him His worship in communion with others, and showing love to your loved ones and treating those outside of your circle of loved ones with decency and charity is far more pleasing to God than being able to play Bible trivia and quote chapter and verse, and yet not live the commandments and the Golden Rule.
All the knowledge of the Bible and your faith is no good unless the actions you take show the faith lights your heart and your soul and your mind. Even the devil can quote Scripture. We’re all supposed to LIVE Scripture!
Joan of Arc herself had a great insight on her faith and her hope for God’s help. When the English put her on trial for her life, she was asked, “Are you in the state of grace?”
She replied, “If I am not, may God place me there. If I am, may God keep me there.”
For all of us. “If I am not, may God place me there. If I am, may God keep me there.”
Not long ago, I saw a picture of Grandpa Charlie and Granny Theresa with their sons … the family circle. Bit by bit, the circle had broken over the years. First Grandpa Charlie, then Granny Theresa, then our father Ed, then Uncle Don, then Uncle Chuck. Other relatives … Granny Ruth, Grandpa Leo, Aunt Billie, Aunt Olive, Uncle Joe, Aunt Jess, Aunt Albie, Uncle Bernie, Uncle Rusty, Aunt Lorraine … and our own family circle … Dad and Mom, our little sister Lizzie, and now it’s Bryan’s turn to rejoin the family circle at the throne.
And this is why we are here – to pray for the repose of Bryan’s soul as he undergoes the particular judgment.
Prehistoric men and our Native American Indians worked hard, and invented tools that would save them labor. They loved art, and expressed it to the limits of their abilities. They loved their spouses, their children, their friends. They buried their dead with respect. They worshiped God to the limits of their abilities.
Despite their primitive nature, they were thinking creatures, whom God made in His image and likeness, and infused with souls. They understood there was something greater than themselves. They erred in worshiping Nature, or the sun, the creation, rather than God the Creator, but they were much too intelligent to worship themselves. This self-deification is the lunacy of too many people today who think they are the center of their own universe. They have an idiot for a deity.
Why do we pray for the dead?
Because we all need help, we benefit from praying, and we benefit from being prayed for.
History records eyewitnesses of only two people going bodily into Heaven. The Virgin Mary, of course, and Elijah the prophet, in his fiery chariot. Almost nobody gets that kind of curbside service to the Pearly Gates! So those of us who have to climb or hitchhike or low-crawl to Heaven need all the help we can get. We need help getting thru Purgatory.
The early Christians held Masses in the Catacombs – the tunnels under Rome – and used the coffins of the dead for altars. The early Christians’ graffiti in the Catacombs refer constantly to prayers for the dead. The great and holy people throughout history asked for the prayers of others and the prayers of those in Heaven. Even the Apostle Paul and Joan of Arc asked for these prayers. The Bible records Paul’s requests, and the national archives of France record Joan’s requests. The Bible also records Judas Maccabee’s ordering of prayers for the dead for cleansing of their sins.
The death and resurrection of Our Lord, and the fullness of life and steadfastness of conscience He offers to those who consciously choose to live and treat others as He wants them to do, makes the Lenten season and the Easter season so important. We all have some embarrassment and dissatisfaction in life. A lot of that is related to when we have fallen short. None of you, my family and friends, disagree, because you are all good people. We can’t despair because of our shortcomings, but we can work to compensate for them.
We pray for the repose of Bryan Sherlock’s soul. We pray for his loved ones, so they will have the strength to live their lives in a way that would make Bryan proud of them. We pray for ourselves, so that we might have the will to live life the way God wants us to live it.
Bryan Sherlock, my brother, as you travel to your eternal reward, may the road rise to greet you and may the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and may God hold you in the palm of His hand. May you make it safely into Heaven long before the Devil knows you’ve passed on.
May God bless you all, every day, as long as you shall live.”
SHERLOCK JUSTICE
WE CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO BE YOUR OWN DETECTIVE
