I wanted to touch him, to tell him that even if everyone left everyone, I would never leave him, he talked and talked, his words fell through him, trying to find the floor to his sadness.

He could have gone through life without the knowledge I had given him and he would have been no worse off for it. But I understood at that moment that I had shared the truth with him for myself. I needed for him to have a choice.

He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk, and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to - capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse - was enough.

He seemed to be waiting for me to move forward. Weren't we all.

"I was alone with him in the bedroom; his mind was alert but his body was failing. He said, almost buoyantly, “I’m ready now.” I sat on the edge of the bed, and another silence fell over us. Then he said, “I wish I could cry, I wish I could cry.”

At first I took this as a comment on his condition but am forever thankful that I pushed on. “What do you want to cry about?” I said.

“For all the love I received and couldn’t return.”

I felt a chill of familiarity.

There was another lengthy silence as we looked into each other’s eyes. At last he said, “You did everything I wanted to do.”

"I did it for you,” I said. Then we wept for the lost years. I was glad I didn’t say the more complicated truth: “I did it because of you.

Your message to him: I am a complete person without you, but I desire to have you be a part of my life because you are worthy of it.

Even his conversation was, as it were, a spoken part.

He was part of my dream, of course — but then I was part of his dream, too.

I could stand before him, be in his arms as I was just then, and still be lost to him, some phantom of a desire he cherished more than he cherished me, the woman he claimed to love.

"He must have known I'd want to leave you."
"No, he must have known you would always want to come back."

And I look right into his eyes, right into him as far as I can see, because I want him to hear me, I want him to hear me with everything I mean and feel and say.

I tried to find something I already knew about life that might help me reach out and touch my brother and get him to look at me and himself.

He was like my father. They each wanted me to be their audience, to hear the things they needed to express.

What would you do if I died?
If you died I would want to die too.
So you could be with me?
Yes. So I could be with you.
Okay.