Jon hasn’t left yet. At one point, he decided not to go home at all. At another point, he decided to move into the family home indefinitely, for months if needed. Finally, he decided to fly rather than drive and to limit his stay. He could have left last night, but he didn’t. He could have left early this morning, but he didn’t. He settled on leaving tomorrow and staying until he has to come back to Utah for his colonoscopy, the one that will reveal whether he has the same cancer as his brother.

Jon has an avoidant attachment style. That’s part of what’s causing him to vacillate. This attachment style is something he learned in his family. It’s a behavior that goes deeper than a coping skill. It’s a survival mechanism in a family where not everyone survives. What kills in his family are accidents, alcohol, bullets, and more than all the others (or alongside them), cancer. They live with a mutation that’s killing them. They don’t like to talk about it, any of it. Hence the suppression and silencing that lead to avoidance.

I can’t tell Jon what to do or point out that delaying his departure is a form of avoidance that could result in his not seeing his brother alive again. I can’t point out that he did the same thing when his mother died and when my mother died and that his avoidance kept us from seeing both our mothers alive one last time. I can only support him as he works through what he’s feeling and as I work through my own feelings about all of this: his brother, his family, their dynamics, their darkness, this dying, this loss, this death.

Nobody in Jon’s family called to tell him what was happening. The last time he spoke with his brother, which was just over a week ago, the chemo treatments were going well. His brother was optimistic. They planned on starting radiation soon. His edema was under control. He felt good. When Jon called yesterday, the extended family was in a hospital room in Iowa City. Some of them had driven from places as far away as Arizona and Tennessee. Jon’s brother was unresponsive in a bed. He was extremely thin. His hair was gone. Jon knows because his father put him on a video call with everyone in the room.

Jon’s father must have called the rest of the family days ago because those who lived at great distances had time to pack their things and make the multi-day journey across the country to be in that hospital room. Jon only found out about what had transpired because he tried to call his brother and got no answer, so he called his father. His father said, “Now’s the time to come if you’re coming,” as if Jon had let the family down somehow, as if he should have been omniscient and known what was happening without anyone telling him what was happening.

Ben. Jon’s brother is named Ben. He may or may not be alive as I write this. But his name is Ben either way. And Jon is flying home to see him tomorrow either way.