The door at the end of the hall was a passageway to another world.  Closed more often than not, shutting out all interlopers, and shutting in a teenage boy already withdrawn and at odds with authority, particularly parental authority.  After all, this was 1968.  Noxious fumes of sandalwood incense, Japanese myrrh, patchouli oil, stale cigarette smoke, and marijuana seeped from underneath his door, perfuming the second floor of our house with visions of Woodstock and Haight Ashbury.  My brother, the oldest of the four Grant children, was the only one to receive a private school education, with its liberal encouragement of free thinking.  Perhaps that’s what laid the foundation for his eclectic taste and love of books, art, and counter culture, all wrapped up in the study of classic literature.

The coast being all clear, I would steal into my brother’s room as stealthily as any CIA operative.  Once inside the enchantment of exciting ideas, books, and philosophies opened new realms for me.  His room was influenced by Eastern religious thought and culture, with little Buddha incense burners scattered throughout.  Wall tapestries of Japanese Kanji characters and mandala like art completing his sanctuary.  Though the years between us made deeper, meaningful communication non existent, I held him in reverence, impressed by the fact that he was tremendously well read, and envious of his courageous rebellion. I viewed him from afar, this untouchable, through the lens of a ten year olds eyes, and longed to be a part of his emerging path and journey.  He was so, “other”, than the rest of us, operating in his own reality, his own space.  I wish he could have known that he had a trusted friend and ally in me, his little sister.  Unbeknownst to him, I had inserted myself into his world via the door to my brother’s room.  Daily excursions of secrecy, slipping in and out of his sacred space, leaving no trace that I had invaded his privacy. His book shelves were filled with poetry, and essays, political opinion, all from the renegade culture.  Fascinating stuff.  I would spend short bursts soaking this new world of his, and I felt closeness to him through his belongings.  Against one wall was a cabinet that had been spray painted with a glossy, black lacquer, the faux brass handles adding to the Asian influence, his collection of magazines and other paraphernalia housed there.  His “stuff” held an endless fascination for me.  On one secret mission to his room, after poking around his shelves, I reached for a copy of the Tao Te Ching, and just behind it and a Kerouac journal, I found a little Sucrets throat lozenge container.  What were throat drops doing behind these books?  Prying it open, I had my first encounter with marijuana, as he had saved all of the potent ends of his smoking.  Foolish me, I just assumed that the burning smell of sickeningly spicy incense was to cover the odor of a gym bag with an old jockstrap, and older gym socks.  Who knew? This added to the allure of his rebellious persona in my mind and elevated his status yet higher.  Not so much because he was smoking pot, but that he was doing so right under my parents noses, literally.  That Asian inspired black lacquer cabinet also held his stash of Playboy magazines.   Part of the sneaking into his abode was the naughtiness of feasting on those pictures, for I could have cared less about the articles.  Dad also had a few girlie magazines hanging around, barely hidden from view, and always with the explanation that he focused on the well written articles.  Your perception is your reality, and my reality, my childhood, was forever robbed with the exposure to those images.  My brother’s room was a confusing mix of intellectual stimulation and lurid pleasure.  Enjoying those magazines with the requisite guilt was my dark, forbidden secret.  My brother’s room was a portal to all that was becoming me. The ever deepening affinity to Asian culture and symbolism, my love affair with books and thought, and the torment of being attracted to forbidden fruit.  His room contained a nice Hifi stereo set as we used to refer to it.  A fair explanation for why I’m still confused with all this talk about Wifi, Hifi, internet.  Ugh, too much to figure out.  His record collection was as eclectic as his choice of footwear.  He had a bright turquoise, satin pair of high top sneakers, unlike any Chuck Taylor Converse sneaks I had ever seen. He was ahead of his time for the brand name of those sneakers was Onitsuka Tigers, the forerunner to what is now Asics, a major player in the recreational shoe industry.  They were beautiful, and loud, a seeming disparity to the understatement and austerity of the Japanese culture that he seemed to revere.  They were cool, hip, groovy.  I remember the first time the word groovy fell out of his mouth at the dinner table.  I didn’t know whether to laugh or not, but I knew from that profound utterance that he identified with the hippies.  His old vinyl LP’s were artists such as Chick Corea, Eric Clapton, Ry Cooder, a yet to be discovered Melissa Etheridge, and of course, the Rolling Stones.  I know that my love of the blues came from hearing and feeling that soulful music slipping under the door of his room right along with the incense and pot.

Being the youngest of four, I watched my siblings leave the nest one by one.  When the opportunity presented itself, my brother vacated our house and more importantly, his room.  The room angled into the corner of the house, and had windows on two sides, an end unit so to speak.  I grabbed that sucker so fast, it’d make your head spin, after all, that space held such an allure, it was hard to resist.  Surely it had good karma and all that spiritual stuff attached with it. The odor of stale incense and cheap, dime store cologne permeated the worn out carpeting, and the curtains, making the memory of my brother omnipresent. What else went on in this room? One can only imagine the sadness and teenage angst that he wore on his sleeve, hibernated in this room.  Whatever went on in this room, it gave birth to a man who would eventually succumb to drugs, alcohol, and self hatred, a commonality that we shared in adulthood.  He left this room, and moved into a world of homelessness and decline.  This brother that I admired as a little girl shocked me into the reality of sexual abuse, the result of his imbibing on cheap wine one horrific night.  I awakened trying to fend off his drunken advance and that was the end of our kinship, for never again would I see my brother through the lens of a ten year olds eyes.

Now I’m all grown up.  Time, maturity, and forgiveness have replaced the anger, and the sense of loss that I felt with his fall from grace. I have not spoken to this brother that was a major influence in so many areas of my life, both good and bad, in almost nineteen years.  All I know is that the door at the end of the hall was a passageway to another world, and that world began in my brother’s room.

Epilogue:

Forgiveness.  I possess the intellectual assent of that lofty concept, but do I possess it in word and deed, the doing of it? The living out of that truth extending to the difficult and seemingly unlovely and unlovable people in our lives?  When I think of a holy God loving this unlovely creature, who am I to withhold the most demonstrative outpourings of human forgiveness?

My brother living behind the door of this room, this un-entered to reality, was not a person whose life would be the stuff of a Google search.  His past residences included the woods behind Route 46, and a stay at the psych ward of Graystone State Mental Hospital.  I don’t know what possessed me to search the town records of his last known actual address, but that’s where I found the awful news of his death in 2009.  All these years later, I didn’t know he had committed suicide.  I was overwhelmed with a sense of the senseless.  The waste of a life unfulfilled, the enormous talent and intellect numbed into submission and escape in a bottle of Vodka and who knows what else.  What have you done Bruce? I can’t blame him for this ultimate act.  I’ve been desperately close the same edge. What a waste of precious life it would have been, or in Bruce’s case, it was.  So sad.

As I read the details, the account stated that the fire department was called to his studio apartment because my sister had filed a missing person’s report.  The police were initially unable to gain entrance to his apartment because the door was blocked.  Carefully removing the old jammed hinges, they found his lifeless body slumped against the door, and the irony of that made my tears flow.  The door to my brother’s room, once and entryway to a world of wonderment and potential, was now the blockade to his next journey.

Long ago I forgave Bruce, but my anguish now is that I never demonstrated that love to him.  Perhaps he suffered with the realization of how his dysfunction played itself out on me. I wish I had been woman enough, Christ like enough, spiritually mature enough to show him that as I have been forgiven, I forgive him. I am left with an aching heart, knowing the Grace that pulled me back from the edge was available to him.  The light of God’s love and healing, washing over me and freeing me to be all God created me to be. The desperate longing of an unfulfilled life, now filled to overflowing with the knowledge that we are the beloved children of God. I miss you Bruce.  Perhaps when my time comes, it won’t be the pearly gates that await me, but rather a door, like the one to your room.  Only this time, I hope that we can hold hands, and walk into the presence of our loving heavenly Father and bask in the glory of finally being home.