Don’t Worry About Me… I’ll Be Gone Soon

Don’t worry about me . . .

That’s what they both said days before they were gone.

That’s what we all told each other no matter what was going on. Don’t worry about me.

Neither of us wanted to be an additional burden to one another.

In the end, I was always worried about them. They were my brothers. I couldn’t help it.

Ticari and I did not connect as frequently as either one of us imagined we would like to. When you’re the one brother that’s far away, that can happen. I always thought about how my loved ones looked at me. I wanted to be everything they imagined I was and more. When we were kids, Ticari walked into my bedroom as I was doing push-ups one night.

When I rose from the routine this time, he was standing beside me as if he had just seen Clark Kent emerge from a phone booth after completing his outfit change to become Superman. That night he looked up at me and said he wanted to be like me when he grew up. Out of many of the moments I had with my siblings, this is one that stuck with me. At the time, I simply thought to myself that my brother admired me enough to walk in my footsteps. I took that seriously, so it meant I had to set a great example. He wasn’t aware of it yet, but everything I possessed within me, he did too.

His talent was unparalleled in our family. It did not matter if it was art, doing tattoos, rapping or cutting hair, Ticari or Fat as we lovingly called him, could do it all. When he was a baby, my sister used to bring him mashed potatoes home from work. He would devour those. My cousin, Tony, called him Potato Man. Potato Man eventually grew out of those chunky cheeks and arms, but the nicknames stuck. I was 5 years older than Fat and he paid attention to every move I made. He would eventually confirm this with me when he made the decision to leave Tennessee State University to pursue other endeavors. He didn’t want to let me down. I attempted to convince him to stay, but he made the choice he felt was best for him. His life sped up pretty quickly after that.

With the birth of his son, Ticari Keaton Jr., our beloved Fat grew up expeditiously. He was ecstatic about TJ. Growing up in a household as large as ours, we all had some level of parental instincts, since we cared for one another or our nieces and nephews. TJ was born in July of 2015. His father was extremely careful and protective of him. Although there were some concerns, we had no idea that we’d be putting him to rest in June of 2016. My brother never got over that. With the physical disabilities Ticari eventually developed after multiple accidents, his body began to shut down. A little over 5 years after he lost his precious baby boy, Fat was gone too.

When I heard the news, I couldn’t even speak it out loud. I didn’t want to say it to anyone, because that would make it real. I remember the shock. I left my workstation and ran out of the house. I sat in the backyard and stared into the distance. Fat is gone. That’s how I heard the news. Fat is gone. That’s all my older brother could say. How could it be real? It was impossible, I thought. I just spoke with him, once on the phone and when I left my parents’ house a couple of days earlier. In my mind, there was no way this could be true. His birthday was 4 days away. He just told me the day before how he planned to celebrate it. I could not utter the words to speak of his passing. I didn’t have them. I refused to say it until I had to, because that meant finally accepting the reality.

The last conversation I had with him, I made him a promise. I could see his body weakening. I could see how difficult each day was for him. The limp he had to walk with, the seizures he had to deal with… they made both of us tear up in our last exchange. He sat on the porch alone, with his body slumped over. My brother was hurting and I couldn’t do anything about it. I made him a promise to be there for him and help in whatever ways I could once I had some other issues resolved. He looked up at me and nodded. “Don’t worry about me, big bruh.” He didn’t know, but I was more worried than I had ever been and sadly, I’ll never get to keep that promise. Time was already running out.

Markee and I were only a year and a half apart, so our relationship was quite different. We competed with each other a lot. As his older brother, I couldn’t really afford to lose to him, so we would go pretty hard when the time came to match up against each other. I knew my family would cheer for him and I was okay with that. He was younger, a bit smaller and quite the character. Markee was loved by everybody. You were guaranteed to laugh if you were in his presence.

Since Markee and I were so close in age, he followed behind me in every situation you can think of. With our cousin, Tyrone, we were usually all over the place together. In Junior High School, Markee would eventually have to take some of the teachers I left my impression on. To their surprise, we were alike, but different and they let him know it too. Markee always had his way of doing things. While I did push-ups, he did calf raises. I played defense in football. He played offense. I was a Goku fan. He loved Vegeta. I sold cars at a dealership. He took more of the wholesale route. This wild juxtaposition of our brotherly connection through similar, yet contrasting interests would last his entire life.

Markee bragged about me a lot though. He was proud that I was his brother.

When he moved to Colorado to begin his new life, he called me. The road there was just like any other period in his life. Nothing about it was smooth. I knew he’d figure it out though. By this time, he had two daughters. As much as he loved sports and being there for our nephews, at his core, he was a girl dad. The oldest is a spitting image of him. She has his demeanor and everything. He always sent pictures of his second born. From the date of her birth on Christmas Day, he said she was my child. Her eyes were just like mine. Those girls meant the world to him. Those conversations meant everything to us. We didn’t agree on everything, but whenever I did something special, Markee would shout it to the world. I loved that.

What I always admired about him was his toughness. Some of the things my brother went through, it’s hard to imagine how he handled it even after all of this. One night I received a call that he was in the hospital. A blood clot had developed in his leg. He went through several surgeries and lost a ton of weight in the process. After several unsuccessful attempts to save it, he had to make the decision to amputate it. His choices were to lose a leg or guarantee he could be there for his children, which ultimately meant there was only one choice—the leg had to go. I didn’t know when or how it would come back around, but I told him about my experience when I tore my ACL. My surgery didn’t go perfectly and it felt like someone was pulling my leg apart for weeks. That period took a lot out of me. I couldn’t imagine what losing a leg was going to be like, but I knew my brother was a fighter.

When I first found out about Markee’s death, I thought about his children. He wanted to be there for them and it all changed just like that. I thought about all the things we would never get to do together. The plans we made just a week before would never come to life. He was gone. The disbelief I felt reliving this experience barely 7 months following the death of another younger brother was palpable. I was sad. I was upset. I was confused. The shock in my body would not even register fully until a few days later. How could this possibly be true? Again? We just reminisced about the times we spent playing football together in the neighborhood and shared laughs as we watched our nephews going back and forth. We were supposed to work out together. We were going to do some trading in the market together. It didn’t make any sense. On March 13th, Markee was gone too.

Our last conversations were about two of the things we frequently had chats about throughout our lives — finances and football. Again, we never did things the same way, but many of our interests aligned in some odd ways. No matter how tough things got in life for him, he always told me never to worry about him. He wouldn’t let me worry. He knew what I carried on a daily basis and always tried to find ways to make me laugh through the pain, even when he had his own to deal with. When he said not to worry this time, I didn’t know it would be the last time I’d speak with him.

His passing was so sudden that when I received the phone call, I had no idea what to expect when I was told that something happened and I needed to get to my parents’ house immediately. I simply hoped I’d be able to see my brother again. That hope disappeared quickly when I finally made it. The scene was familiar. My siblings and cousins stood around trying to make sense of it all. The looks on their faces are engrained into my memory. Defeat, anger and bafflement were painted all over their expressions.

He was on his way to the hospital and nobody could talk. I wanted to comfort everybody and I tried, but I was screaming on the inside. I knew this was it. After a great deal of hesitation, I elected to go to the hospital to say my final goodbye. Because he was the first little brother I had, I needed to be the last person at the hospital bed. I stared at him as I thought about the baby picture we had in our little suits together. I wanted to be by his side again. I couldn’t move, so I stood there with my hand on his chest just to make sure there was no heartbeat. When I came to terms with it, part of my heartbeat left too.

At the homegoing service, I couldn’t help but say something. Markee was one of the toughest people I know. The last thing I remember when leaving the gravesite was walking with his oldest daughter, Zora, in my arms. I tried to come up with the words to reassure her, but there was nothing there. Sometimes I look around now and still — nothing.

What I keep reminding myself is that we cannot choose the way pain comes into our lives. We can only choose how we respond to that pain. I know what my plan is, but I have no idea what life is going to throw at our family next.

We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

The reality about life is at the opposite end of it is death. We must all face it at some point.

I have experienced loss in every area of my life.

I have lost love. I have lost many of the things I’m passionate about, while trying to build something greater.

I have lost grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

A couple of them were lost in between the deaths of my brothers.

This is different.

Suddenly losing two brothers the way we lost them in less than a year is a feeling I cannot explain.

When they told me not to worry this time . . . I worried. I felt something and I scrambled to get in its way.

I tried to stop whatever was coming, but there was nothing I could do. I knew this, but it still hurt like hell.

Don’t worry about me . . .

That’s what they both said days before they were gone.

That’s what we all told each other no matter what was going on.

Don’t worry about me . . .

This time, they forgot to add they’d be gone soon.

#RIPFat #RIPKee