Last Thanksgiving, 1999, I had many reasons to be grateful. My husband and I bought a beautiful old Victorian house in New Jersey the summer before, which allowed my entire family to gather in one spot for the holiday. My parents, brother Dave and his family, and my youngest brother Joshua could spend some time together before Josh left for Air Force Reserve basic training in California. Additionally, I was expecting a second child, a girl to join my two year old son as the adored niece and nephew of Uncle Josh (who couldn't wait to buy little Harry playboy magazines). Josh had a great time here, visited New York City and went running in Central Park. A few days later, I kissed him on the cheek, wished him good luck in basic training, and watched as he ran across my lawn to catch a car to the airport.
Not two months later, on January 22, 2000, Josh died in his sleep. No warning, no extra day, minute or second to say good-bye. My husband and I had just walked in the door after a rare night out at the movies. Feeling relaxed, I was paying the baby-sitter when the phone rang. My father's voice came on the answering machine speaker, telling me to call him back no matter what the time. There's a certain tone of voice Dad uses specifically for death; I haven't heard that voice since I was six, and his mother passed away. But you never, ever forget such a voice, and my stomach turned as I grabbed at the phone. I was certain that it was my mother, who had just completed six months of chemotherapy for cancer a few weeks before; maybe her heart had given out?
Nothing could have been more unexpected, more of the proverbial thunderbolt from a clear blue sky, than the news that my thirty-two year old baby brother had been found dead in his room at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The only news we had at the time was that a heart attack was suspected, which made no sense. Josh was in the best shape of his life in the years before he died, and while not the typical eighteen-year-old Air Force Reserve recruit, he had just completed a grueling basic training course a week before his death. He was always the athlete of the family, always the one who could eat whatever he wanted while maintaining the trim, muscular physique of an Olympian. No, something else killed him, I just didn't know how painfully long the wait for the answer would be. Josh was found on a Saturday morning, transported to a nearby hospital, then from there, sent by car a few hours north to a coroner's office that was to perform the autopsy. By the time his body arrived, the coroner was deluged by the usual Saturday night rounds of violent deaths, which apparently take priority over seemingly natural causes. Then I guess they don't work on Sundays in California. We wouldn't hear the results of the autopsy until the following Wednesday. Josh's body wouldn't arrive until the night after that.
Meanwhile, suffocating under the "why"s and "how"s, and really not believing because I did not have any rational explanation, I tried to get my family from New Jersey to my parents' home in upstate New York. My other brother and his wife were already there from Phoenix. The airline was great when I explained the situation; the problem was Mother Nature. On the morning we were to fly out, we woke up to the first snow storm of the season, which closed most airports and severely delayed the others. Never again will I say that things can't get any worse, because they can and do. We rescheduled the flight for the following morning, but once it became apparent that it would take more than a day to dig out from the storm, we decided to brave the snow and make the eight-hour drive. Doing something, even driving through the ice, was preferable to sitting so far away from my family.
The next morning, my father spoke to the pathologist who performed the autopsy on my brother. Hanging up the phone, he haltingly enunciated the words, arteriovenous malformation. A what? Now, it is hard to believe that there was a time I did not know what those words meant. The AVM ruptured, causing a large cerebral hemorrhage. Josh bled to death. Unlike many of the people who have posted narratives on this site, Josh never manifested any prior symptoms, not even a headache - at least, none that he spoke of. He was found cold in his bed, as if he were sleeping - no attempt to leave the bed was evident, as there might have been if he had awakened with a seizure or in such pain that he had tried to seek help.
Josh's body came home in a crated coffin - we expected that. What no one expected was that the crate would be in a huge cardboard box, with his last name written in black magic marker across it. I think someone should have told us about the cardboard box. We buried Josh in his dress uniform on January 28, in Buffalo, New York. It was eight degrees, and the wind was howling. A military escort performed a flag-folding ceremony, while Josh's best friend from high school played Taps. Amazingly, the sun was trying to shine. It's funny, the things that stick in your mind about a certain day. While I am grateful that Josh didn't suffer as so many AVM victims do, that doesn't make any less painful the fact that I never got to tell him what a great guy I think he was, that he will never get to meet his niece, who is due in late March, or that - well, the list can go on. But his death has challenged me to fight the pain, to make the most of each day. Every night I go to sleep wondering if I'll wake up the next morning, and when I do, I am truly amazed at the opportunity I have - that Josh didn't have. And if I live long enough to see my baby daughter born and named after her uncle - we'll call her Jo - that will be enough.
I welcome any comments or questions, or if I can help in any way.
Aubrey's
Update 2 Apr 2000
My brother Josh's namesake, Isabella Jo Blanda (we call her Jo), came into the world on March 29, 2000, at 5:17 pm after an amazingly easy labor (ninety minutes long) and delivery. A real peanut at 5 lbs. 12 oz., Jo is a feisty one, kicking up a storm and eating like a horse - just like her Uncle Josh! She has dimples, just like him too (and strangely, he was the only one in my family to have dimples; nobody in my husband's family has them. They must be a gift from Josh). My brother would have been so proud!
Joshua Mark Birzon memorial website.