My Brother Bill

This is the sad true story about my brother Bill who was four years older than me. He was born and then tossed aside by his mother who left him to his father’s parents to raise, then promptly disappeared out of his life forever. My grandparents brought him up hoping his father would take care of him when he returned from the war. His father also my dad returned from the war married with another son and didn’t want to know. They gave him a nickname in private so no one else would know. In private, they always called him Dopey. My sister and I were told our grandparents had adopted him and he was nothing to do with us. When my dad’s parents died in 1958 and 59 plans were made to come back to England where my mother’s parents were still alive and leave Bill far behind. Then as his mother had done eighteen years before his father abandoned him as well. For a while, he had to live on the streets taking handout from where ever he could. He was arrested for vagrancy and sent to jail. Getting out he got himself a job and began to build a life. He got married and started a family, until one night he came home and found his wife in bed with another man, and a divorce followed and he was alone again. Then after 25 years, his job vanished and he had to find another. One day in 2000, he got a telephone call and did not know whether to believe it or not. It was a call he never thought he would ever get, a call from his younger brother - me. As we talked on the phone, some truths came to pass his brother and his sister did not know about him. They were told he had been adopted and were nothing to do with them. However, I had found the truth, which incensed my mother enough to disown me. We met one another for the first time after forty-two years in 2001 and again in 2002. In 2003, this sad story ends, in the March of that year Bill succumbed to a heart attack. His final words were a testament to his life. No one loved me enough to care. The sad truth is someone did and that someone was me. We never had enough time together, circumstances kept us apart, but he was my brother and will remain in my heart. 2 November 2009 Authors Note: The facts are as Bill told them to me. A sad refrain to a wonderful guy who was tainted by my parents as being bad and no good. If the truth were known he was probably better than the both of them. He was a guy who would give you the shirt of his back if you needed it. My brother Bill, may he now rest in peace. DVH - 2009