Every Word

Spencer, originally uploaded by Diana Kimball.

Last week, my brother Spencer tried to kill himself. He swallowed fifty pills, an enormous overdose of anti-depressants. He survived. And was rushed to the hospital, but stayed sedated for five days while the doctors waited for all the serotonin to leave. On Saturday afternoon, his fever spiked suddenly, without explanation. Meanwhile, his blood pressure dropped. By the evening, he was in critical condition. The surgeon tried to get his heart to start again. Spencer died before midnight.

My brother suffered from anxiety and depression for most of his life, and was hospitalized for suicidal ideation in 2007. This did not come out of nowhere. But there is no way I can believe that it’s true.

This is how it’s true.

On Monday, I got a call on the train home from work, Mountain View to San Francisco. “Spencer's okay,” my mom told me. I worried all week. But everyone thought he would live. The question was how—how would he go on after he woke up; not whether. On Thursday, things took a turn for the worse. We were still sure it was how. But I flew home to Ann Arbor anyway, on an overnight flight; choking on foreboding.

Friday morning, my flight arrived; I went to the hospital to see Spencer, without first sleeping. Later, I wrote that he looked like a hulking baby. Red hair tousled, eyes closed, tubes—restless in sedated sleep.

Machines bleating, we left. We were still exasperated: a futile feeling, staving off sadness with anger.

On Saturday, Spencer's condition deteriorated. An intern called in the morning; a surgeon called in the afternoon. We held our breath. Later, the hospital told us we needed to come immediately. We drove slowly, carefully—afraid to die.

___

Spencer knew he was going to die.

In the last letter he wrote, he insisted. “I've had a more or less good life, and I'm just at my breaking point. I think some people come into the world with a low tolerance for pain—I count myself among them, and I’m lucky I've had as much joy as I have.”

As empty as I feel, I know he meant every word.

___

Spencer Miles Kimball was born on April 21, 1989, and died on September 26, 2009, at the age of 20. He lived in Ann Arbor all his life, and was a junior at the University of Michigan. He is survived by his mother and father, Miles Kimball and Gail Cozzens Kimball, and two siblings—Diana and Jordan Kimball. He is predeceased by two sisters, Marianne Camilla (d. 1985) and Laura Beth (d. 1991).

Spencer was a writer and a poet. He loved his family and his friends fiercely, and was loyal to a fault. Music and reading were his solace and joy. He believed in the power of fiction and the elegance of truth.