After a difficult, and heroic fight with cancer, my amazing brother in law Don Brenier passed away last week. He was a great husband, and father, and to me he was my older brother. I always say how lucky my sisters are to have married the men they did. There's a lot to consider over the coming days, but right now I just want to write about Don.
I want to tell you about miracles. They are real, but you don't always recognize them when they are happening. Everyday, we prayed for Don. People all over were praying for Don. We prayed for a miracle. That Don would be healed. He wasn't. The miracle didn't come, even until the last moments, I hoped and prayed. As I discussed this with Shannon, we realized that the miracle wasn't his miraculous recovery. Instead it was a lot of different things. It was an extra three years we got to be with Don, and while there were times when it was very scary, there were a lot of good times too.
Just before his diagnosis I had visited home to Whittier. After spending so many years away I had an overwhelming feeling to come home permanently. That same trip Jennifer was visiting too, and she and Marc felt like they needed to move to California too. By the end of that summer, I had been accepted to Pepperdine, and Jenn and Marc were living in Orange County. After being spread out for more than a decade we were all close together.
Easter time just after my trip home, that I was starting to get serious with the girl I was dating at the time. I had gone to her parents for Easter and told her, that I wanted to bring her home and take her to Disneyland. She had never been to California so she was very excited. I remember sitting on my porch in Arlington talking to Don about all the things we would do when I brought this girl home. I was so excited for my family to meet her. Her name was Shannon.
It was only days later that I got a phone call I didn't want. You know that phone calls at odd hours are never good. In the middle of the night, Chrissi called to tell me that Don was in the hospital and that he was going to have brain surgery. It was probably the scariest thing I had ever heard in my life.
For almost three years after that, Don fought. While Don had been my big brother more or less since I was 11 years old, we didn't really admit to one another how fond we were of each other. I think that was the first time I ever said out loud that I loved him.
I have said to Shannon, many times that I wish she could have known Don before he got sick. He was so much fun, he was a jack of all trades. When I first started Pepperdine, Don got very sick with pneumonia from his treatments, we were very worried that we were going to lose him then, but we didn't. He fought so hard, so bravely, a few weeks later he was out of the hospital, with an oxygen tank and riding around on my mom's scooter at the kids' soccer games. A couple of months later Chrissi told me that Don was not allowed to play in the Turkey Bowl, he wanted to. And that is how it went more or less for the time he was sick. Bad times, then good times, never knowing exactly what was around the corner.
I think it is very scary to know that you may be dying. Everybody dies, that is an indisputable part of life. Most want to live a long life and go out on there own terms more or less. My Grandpa was in his 91st year when he died. He did literally everything he ever wanted to do. Most of his brothers had already passed away and he had been a widower for more than 30 years ago. And while I was sad when Grandpa died because I missed him, it was not a tragedy. When my mom died I was very very sad, and I still miss her every day. But I'm thankful that I got her for a mom for almost 27 years, that she had great happiness in her life, and that she got to be a grandma five times.
Sometimes people will tell you that there is a reason for everything, and they might truly believe that. And while I am a person of great faith, I don't think there is a "reason" why somethings happen. Sometimes they just do. Don got cancer, and it wasn't to teach him a lesson, or an opportunity for us to be closer, he got cancer because cancer happens and it sucks. CANCER SUCKS.
In my first area in Sweden I lived in an apartment in Karlskrona. Lindesnesvagen 39. I think the door code was 7777. Every morning I ate cereal for breakfast and listened to tapes on our old radio. We only had like four tapes, and my comp hated them but I liked listening every morning. There was one tape by a man named John Cannan. For some reason one particular song sticks out to me. I googled the phrase from the song and figured out it is called Come Unto Him. I listened to the song and I promise I can still taste the yogurt that I put on my cereal (you do that in Sweden). The phrase I remembered was "acquainted with grief"and as I have gotten older I have unfortunately become acquainted with grief, with my mom, when my best friend's daughter passed away, and now with Don's passing. It is not fun to be acquainted with grief.
Looking back for me, there are two things in particular that seem like miracles to me. From the time I moved back to Washington DC in 2005, Don told me that I had to go to graduate school. We talked at least once a week and he would ask me if I was working on my application, I was so excited to tell him that I got it to Pepperdine and that I was coming home. I loved spending most every weekend in Whittier with the Breniers, going to soccer games and watching Game of Thrones on Sunday nights. Don would tell the kids to leave Uncle Peter alone so he could watch his show. I am proud to be a Pepperdine alum just like Don. It was a great day when I graduated from Pepperdine. My family was there, and Don walked the very steep steps up to the bookstore to get a license plate frame.
The other thing was that he got to be there when I got married. I remember thinking how handsome Don looked in his tuxedo. The cancer had caused him to lose a little weight and he looked dynamite. The Breniers had a really fun time on their trip to DC. One of the small miracles was convincing Shannon to move to California. It was hard for her to move away from everything she was familiar with but she understood that home was where I needed to be. Incidentally, as Shannon and I were driving off to our honeymoon, Don was hiding in the back seat and just about gave us a heart attack. Well played my good man...well played.
I do believe that prayers are answered, it just isn't always the way we hope or we anticipate. Jeffrey R. Holland put it this way,
"Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come."
I can not express to you in words how much I will miss Don. He was my big brother. He tried his hardest to make me handy, he never complained about me drinking his juice, he challenged me to move forward in my life, and convinced me when I was 12 years old that he could sing every song on the radio. He was a great dad, and he put up with my sister's shenanigans, which is no easy task ; ). I'm glad that the last conversation I had with Don, I told him everything that I wanted to say, and most importantly I told him I loved him.
I asked Don, what he was thinking and he said he was just thinking about getting out of here (the hospital). I said, I know...this place sucks.
Every time Don called me I would always say "Hey Bro". I miss that. I have about five of his voicemails on my phone. I can't listen to them yet but I'm glad that when I need to, I can always hear his voice.
I love you and miss you Don, my brother, my friend, and my hero.
