In the Spirit of Medicine

My younger brother Kelly suffered a stroke when he was 46 years old and he’d had diabetes for years and smoked cigarettes since we were young. He went from being the strongest person I know to being unable to move his left arm. He was a great fisherman and he invited me to come and have fish with him about ten years ago. He cut up northern pike and rolled it in eggs, then crushed crackers and he fried the fillets in a whole stick of butter. It was the best fish I’ve ever eaten and I only do that every ten or fifteen years or so. He ate like that all the time. He died in a shack without electricity, running water or indoor plumbing two days after Christmas when he was 53 years old. Bacon was on sale and he bought ten pounds of it the week before he had his stroke.