We were so different from each other you would not have identified us as brothers.
Quiet, self-effacing, handsome, introspective, brainy, clever, he loved – almost craved – being alone. My brother Paul was a back-of-the-room type. He did nearly everything in moderation.
Everything that I was not.
I never knew what he was thinking.
He always knew what I was thinking – because I said so.
Slow (or moderate) was his favorite pace.
Mine? Speeded up.
In spite of his tendency to withdraw, you would have needed a ballpark to accommodate his friends, yet another underappreciated tribute to his solidity, loyalty, authenticity.
I am demonstrative. He never self-disclosed.
We lived together for seven years after my second divorce.
Seven is a happy coincidence. That was how many times he spoke.
Annually.
If we were going someplace together of an evening – rare occurrence – he could ride to and from the event without a word.
True Reflection of Paul
My favorite Paul story:
Newspapers, magazines and other periodicals are a crucial part of my daily life. For Paul, not so much. I had books and periodicals strewn throughout our Venice apartment. Paul did not have any.
One evening I came home to discover that six magazines I had stacked up to read, had vanished.
Paul was sorry. But he did not remember disposing of them.
He never raised his voice. He said he would search the likely disposal places where they might have been put for trash pickup.
I was upset.
I don’t recall why, but it took Paul two days to rescue the magazines. I was thrilled.
He had tears in his eyes. I shrank in embarrassment and regret.
I felt horribly because I had caused this. To my permanent sorrow, I never made it up to him.
I imagine Paul forgot about it. I hope he did. This was a year or two before the end.
Nineteen years ago this evening, I came home from visiting my sons in the Valley. It was 9:30.
The door to our second-story apartment was ajar. Odd.
The television was running and the room was black. Even odder.
Turning on an overhead light, I walked toward the bathroom.
I was shocked when I found Paul lying on his back, on the floor, burned-out cigarette in his left hand.
I gasped and ran for the telephone. 9-1-1. The operator urged me to try and resuscitate him. I assured her it was too late, by 12 hours it turned out.
Heart attack. He had been warned to stop smoking, but he loved puffing too much.
Pop was 82 at the time and living in the Eastern time zone. In consultation with my five sisters, I determined not to call Pop until the morning.
When I telephoned him, I said “Pop, we lost Paul last night.”
Silence on the other end.
Paul was his father’s son, both unflappable in the best of times and the worst of times, a gift some would say.
The true gift, however, to our family and to his many friends was Paul himself. Everything else was commentary, secondary.
