A New Mexico Childhood:
A Eulogy for My Brother, Gone at 50


God came for my brother at 3 a.m. Not about 3 a.m. but
literally: Right then. It was exact, and I know because I was there.
Apparently, God and Cooper had a pre-arranged appointment to keep,
        one we just couldn't find in his datebook. At first,
        we were relieved that the merciless pain,
        cruel beyond measure, was now in the past.  

My mind drifted back and forth; my eyes sought his face, his
hands. I held his hands over and over: dead or alive, those hands
had something to tell me if I could just listen harder! His hands were
        like our father's: strong, sure, with beautiful fingers
        that belied the hurts inside. And, indeed,
        my brother's youth was full of hurts--and joys.

Cooper's New Mexico childhood was in part the stuff of many others,
perhaps just like yours: packed to the brim with lizards, dust, North-4th
Street Tastee-Freez tacos, ant bites, rocks with crystals, badly scuffed
        cowboy boots, unwillingly met cactus spines, the slithery trails of snakes,
        the soft prints of jackrabbits, pockets full of pottery shards and rocks,
        feet and shoes riddled with goatheads.

Truly, Cooper's was not an easy life--no, not ever.
Born prematurely, in his early years he was small: a tiny, feisty,
irrepressible kid who never quite knew when to keep his mouth shut:
        "Welcome home, Dad. I broke my bike!"
        "I hate math!  I won't do it!"
        "I hate peas!  I'm gonna throw up!"

Now, mind: Our mother was a queen who was rational to
a fault, but her consort was John Wayne. You just don't say
NO to John Wayne. And so it seemed Cooper was always in
        trouble--but he had spirit in abundance, misplaced as it
        sometimes was. Yes, Cooper and my father together
        could give me butterflies upon butterflies.

Here's once. We found out the hard way that our father had a reptile phobia:
Cooper lost a lizard in the house, and we learned that nothing short
of Pompeiian devastation would come raining down if we didn't find that
        small, innocent lizard. We looked, we prayed. No lizard.  
        Finally, during the last prayer we would ever by alive to pray, if we didn't get lucky,
        God put the lizard right between my feet.  

Crisis averted, but privately Cooper and I wondered what would have happened
if he, like his buddy, had lost 12 baby snakes in the house.  We shuddered;
it didn't bear thinking about. . . Cooper and I spent infinite hours wandering the arroyo
        and mesa across from our house, finding petroglyphs in the
        arroyo's lava perhaps never seen in centuries, and
        discovering arrowheads and cranky collared lizards.

Time passed. The teenage years arrived, and Cooper's wheel gene flourished.
He and Father shared cars and more motorcycles than an average sales lot.  
And that was when he also found love among the Baptists, in the form of a pretty
        young innocent who knew a good man when she saw one--
        and through some miracle, this angel would reappear to
        bless and envelope the end of his life.

Into this teenage time of Cooper's crept the monster that was to haunt my brother
most of his future life.  Much worse than John Wayne's punishments, this monster was truly from hell, and would cause him to sink to his knees time and time again.  
        Cooper was subject to severe depression. Again and again it tried to claim him.  
        But he always got up; that irrepressible spirit would NOT stay down, and I claim
        it is still among us,
              bringing courage
              to my hands
              upon these keys.