My brother, five years and two days older than me, had deliberately stayed off the path of anything that you might consider 'normal' American middle-class life.
This has included not working, using "recreational" drugs (doesn't that sound like drugs ingested while on a playground swing?), not playing any income tax when he did work, avoiding any form of responsibility, and generally living off anyone that he could.
Although, I must admit, he remained basically honest, open about his lifestyle, and freely willing to share all that he had at the moment.
About a year ago, when I felt my brother had suffered a stroke (slurred speech, confused memory), I called the local fire station and requested EMTs be sent out to his place to check on him (he was in Wisconsin - I was here in Arizona).
My brother was FURIOUS, and really chewed me out about asking people to intrude in his life, insisting that he was in charge of his life, and did NOT want any sort of medical intervention, and just wanted to be LEFT ALONE.
Last Friday, I received an odd email from, of all places, my high school website - "Hi, this is Erin, I need to talk to you about your brother, please call me at 268-555-1212."
This sounded distinctly like a "if you wire me $2,000, your Nigerian Prince brother will be released from his kidnappers" or some such scam, and I was seriously tempted to simply delete it. However, there was a hospital web-site named, and it looked legit, so I called.
And found out my brother had been in the hospital for the past four days, was being released, and had no where to go or anyone to help him.
Thanks goodness for the Mormon Mafia - one call to a bishop, and then Latter-Day Saints took my brother to a motel, fed him, and watched over him in shifts until I could get there the next day.
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