The Beauty of FREEBIRD

My youngest brother's health suffered a precipitous decline in 1995. The experimental drugs had failed to stem Michael's ruthless aliment's advances. I received a telephone call from my older brother in Boston. I was running a nightclub in Beverly Hills. He told me the bad news. The next day I was on a plane to Logan. My family was waiting at the hospice on the South Shore. I had seen friends die of AIDS. None of that prepared for the sight of my brother. His only nourishment was a morphine drip.

I guessed his weight to be 120. His family sat by his bedside. My mother patted his hand. My sisters wet his lips. My father met the tragedy with a noble stoicism. He had done his best. Tears were for another day. My older brother read from the Bible. My youngest brother responded to none of this.

One night I entered Michael's room and my younger brother was playing FREEBIRD on his guitar. Paddy was a kind soul, but my youngest brother was more into show tunes and disco than southern rock. I mentioned this to my brother.

"You're right, but in his state I figure that he would hear this song and know it was me." My youngest brother strummed his guitar and I joined his singing the song. I was more a punk than anything else, but I knew every word. FREEBIRD had been a huge hit in 1972.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
'Cause there's too many places I've got to see.
But, if I stayed here with you, girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
'Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.

Bye, bye, its been a sweet love.
Though this feeling I can't change.
But please don't take it badly,
'Cause Lord knows I'm to blame.
But, if I stayed here with you girl,
Things just couldn't be the same.
Cause I'm as free as a bird now,
And this bird you'll never change.
And this bird you can not change.
Lord knows, I can't change.
Lord help me, I can't change.

My younger brother put down his guitar and kissed his emaciated brother on the forehead. I kissed the other side. His skin was waxen. Michael had only a little further to go.

"Let's take a photo."

"Now?" Paddy knew how vain Michael was. It was a family trait.

"If not now, then it will be never." Michael had hours left in his heart. I positioned my camera on the bureau. The timer ran for thirty seconds. The camera snapped a shot of Paddy and me with my baby brother between us. He died a day later. We buried him in the town cemetery. I fled the sorrow to Asia and mourned my brother at the holiest temples in the Orient.

Upon my return I developed the roll of film from Michael's last days. I didn't show the shot on the bed to anyone but Paddy. He shook his head.

"What? You thinking about how thin he was?" I asked taking the photo back from his hand.

"No, just thinking about how fat we were."

I looked at the picture and laughed at the truth. Michael would have too and probably did someplace in the afterlife. He was out there somewhere.

FREEBIRD INDEED.