THE ONES WE MISS 🫶

FOR GOGY

Apr 13, 2024

Today is one of the more personal letters that I send to you.

For the past 17 years this day of the year has often been a difficult one. I have decided to change this significantly and to make it a day of joy and love.

My little brother would have been 44 years old today. His name was Alexander but many people never knew that name as everyone - even his teachers - only called him Gogy. This unusual nickname came about because my sister and I - we were 12 and 16 years old when he was born in 1980 - thought the name was old-fashioned and boring. My mother babbled some baby talk while changing him and somehow Gogy stuck. Most of his friends didn't even know his real name. The only one who refused to call him by this name was my grandfather. My brother always knew when things were serious or when he was in trouble as those were the times he was called out by his given name, Alexander.

Unfortunately Gogy joined the club of those who died at the young age of 27. It still often feels somewhat surreal that he is not there anymore and I still miss him dearly. As he was born in England he had the privilege of British birthright, having two nationalities and passports. I will never forget how he was bursting with pride when he went on a school trip to England and entered the country of his birth with his British passport.

I am blessed with so many beautiful memories of him and he will always have a very special place in my heart. He was kind, he had an incredible sense of justice, was very well-read, a bit crazy, highly sensitive, and unfortunately also unfit for life.

The last few years of his life were destructive to say the least, and determined by his addiction to drugs which he kept from us for a long time. When we found out it was already too late. The was on heroin at the end. I will not go into the gory details of his demise but I believe as with any addiction the inflicted person needs to first acknowledge that there is a problem. You can put someone into rehab as often as you like, if they don’t want to battle the addiction it is a waste of time, effort, and resources.

At the end of the day he had to grow up alone with my mother and father. My sister and I had one another to lean on growing up and he had nobody. He was at their mercy and the result was devastating.

I am not trying to make this a sad post. It’s been many years now and the human mind is a beautiful thing. We can remember the wonderful things and these memories grow stronger and even if they cannot eliminate the ugly ones completely, they most certainly can diminish their power.

Today, when I think of Gogy, it is with love and joy to have had him in my life. I will not idealise him as he had his flaws, as we all do and he was far from being a saint.

The one things that saddens me to this day though is that he died alone and it was days before we found him in his little flat. He did not, as one may suspect, die of an overdose, but his young body simply gave up after years of substance abuse and being infected with Hepatitis C. Yet nobody deserves to die alone.

As long as I live, he will not be forgotten, he will be loved, and he will be missed. The good and beautiful memories will be treasured and the others move into the background.

🎶My Song for you

This amazing song, Paper Bag by Fiona Apple, is one he loved and so do I - great lyrics and a beautiful voice!

For more good music, go to this Spotify playlist where you can find all the songs from the Change & Evolve Letters!

📚My Poem for you

Is by John Keats (1795–1821)

To My Brother George

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

MANY the wonders I this day have seen:

The sun, when first he kist away the tears

That fill’d the eyes of morn;—the laurel’d peers

Who from the feathery gold of evening lean;—

The ocean with its vastness, its blue green,

Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fears,—

Its voice mysterious, which whoso hears

Must think on what will be, and what has been.

E’en now, dear George, while this for you I write,

Cynthia is from her silken curtains peeping

So scantly, that it seems her bridal night,

And she her half-discover’d revels keeping.

But what, without the social thought of thee,

Would be the wonders of the sky and sea?