The Seany Syndrome

The Seany Syndrome:

A Memoir of Childhood Sibling Loss

By Kimberly Asay

Prologue

Mom taught us to talk to him when he trembled. She taught us how to make sure he did not bite himself, how to administer his emergency medicine, and how to time the slow, agonizing ticks of a timed seizure.

But, most importantly, she taught us to talk to him: “He can still hear us. It doesn’t seem like it, but he can hear you.”

So, three big, but still little, sisters learned to kneel beside their little brother during his seizures, and whisper:

“Seany, we are here.”

“Seany, it’s almost over.”

“Seany, we love you.”

One time, of the many times, I held Sean’s calloused hand during a seizure, I spoke to him. His fingers were stiff and taunt within my own, unyielding to my gentle, hesitant grip. His eyes flickered back, showing only the whites, and a rhythmic tremble coursed through his rigid frame.

“Seany, it’s going to be okay,” I whispered.

I did not know that everything was going to be okay. In truth, I was a ten-year-old girl, silly beyond reason, and my knowledge extended to the cuddliness of dogs and the innocence of cookies.

There would be two more years of seizures. Two more long years. Then, stillness.

There were many things I wanted to do for my brother. As a little girl, I always wanted to make him laugh. I loved his big ol’ goofy chuckle. I loved taking him out in our wagon and watching his fingers gently brush the earth around him. And I loved watching him tuck his head into my mother’s shoulder and find a home there.

When I held Sean in the mortuary, I tried to speak to him again. But this was different. Sean was so cold and not even a tremble rippled through his small body. This was no seizure. I was twelve years old then. I did not hold out hope that he could hear me as he had during his seizures.

But still, I ran my fingers through his sandy, dusty brown hair, and tried desperately to memorize the feel of it. I look back at that moment now and wish I had said more. As Mom always told us: Talk to him—he can still hear you.

Chapter 1

My hair feels stiff and brittle, a salty, straw-like mess that crunches between my fingers even as it hangs limp in a wet, tangled ponytail. I suck more of the water from the tips as wafting heat from the car heater circles around me. Even with Mom at the hospital and the birth of our new brother, our parents still made us go to swim class. Ridiculous. The smell of musty sneakers and chlorinated water from the YMCA permeate from mine and Melissa’s swimsuit bags as Dad drives. Fidgeting against the pleather upholstery in the car, I wriggle my fingers under my bottom to try and pull out an unbearable wedgie. The straps on my tight one-piece red swimsuit dig into my shoulders and the bikini cut nips at the tender flesh around my thighs.

As we enter into the hospital, my eyes squint under the fluorescent hospital lights and my hair still hangs wet from swim class no matter how much I have sucked out from the tips. The squeak of mine and my sisters' sneakers on the linoleum floor sound like Daffy Duck is walking beside us. My lumpy gray Tweedy sweater and windbreaker sweatpants cling to the parts of my swimsuit that are still damp and goosebumps rise on the exposed bits of my neck.

“Hey Kimberly, let’s race,” my twin, Melissa says, with a grin. She draws her zip-up jacket closer around the nape of her neck, covering up the exposed bits of her swimsuit straps, and wiggles off a shiver like a dog shaking off water.

“Ok!” I agree, but before I can even get the next word past my lips, Melissa reaches out and pushes me back with a giggle.

“Hey!” I shout and try to reach out to tear at her windbreaker jacket.

We are a tangle of scrawny little limbs and our giggles are louder than the squelch of our shoes as we spin and wrestle down a long starkly empty hallway, where the sharp tang of chemical cleaner hits the back of our throats.

“Cut it out, Melissa and Kimberly! This is a hospital,” Sheila says. Her hands rest on her hips and her eyes narrow at us. I smother another giggle with my hand, but still poke Melissa in the ribs one more time.

Sheila may be older than us by three years and think she knows everything, but the hospital is thrilling. The ground itself seems to hum with adventure. Best of all, somewhere inside this strange starkly clean building, my new brother is alive.

The hospital walls are white with a subtle undertone of sickly yellow, like they have been washed with lemon scented cleaner too many times. But outside, my Connecticut hometown does not fail to show off. Pumpkin-orange and pepper-green leaves break from their branches, spiraling through the air to settle on the frosted forest floor. The tree branches wave at me as the wind howls like a forlorn wolf.

Mom said it was a good time to have a baby—right before the holidays so he can be here with us, too, for all the celebrating.

Although, I do feel kind of bad my brother has to first meet the world when it is so horribly cold outside. My lips turn down as I think about how it is only going to get colder over the next few months. The tree’s timber talons scratch against the hospital window as if they too want to come inside and meet my brother.

Dad uncrumples the white paper in his hands and mutters to himself as he continues up from behind us.

“Room 203, room 203, room 2003” he says under his breath. He looks up at the dangling signs above our heads. I cock my head and pretend like I am studying them, too, although I still don’t know how to read.

“C’mon, Sheila,” Dad says, but Sheila doesn’t take her censoring eyes off of Melissa and I.

We go into a hallway where most of the doors are shut.

“Here we are,” Dad says, at door 203 and uses the barest bits of his knuckles to tap a light knock on the door.

“Come in.”

My ears perk at the sound of Mom’s strong voice. I raise my clenched fingers to my mouth and dance in place as Dad eases open the door and Melissa, Sheila, and I tumble inside.

Mom never likes to lay down, but she is laying down now in a small bed with strange bars on it and tightly drawn stark white sheets. Her eyes look different. While they are still that same sapphire blue, her lashes flutter like she has just woken up and the light around her is too bright. But her lips spread into a soft smile and I see a bit of light amusement lift in the curvature of her eyebrows.

“Who’s ready to meet their baby brother?” she says, in a sing-song lilting voice.

I peek into the bundle in her arms and see him.

He is the most beautiful creature my wide eyes have ever beheld.

Sheila, Melissa, and I each stand on our tiptoes to stare in wonder at this tiny, living baby doll. His drooping nose makes me giggle, and I daintily press my finger to his tiny nostrils just to check and see if my doll is truly real. And he is.

“What’s his name?” Sheila asks, looking at our brother, who barely wiggles away from the scratchy hospital blanket and closer towards Mom’s barely exposed chest.

Mom’s eyes sparkle with her usual teasing smile, and she says, “Why don’t you see? He got you each a present, and his name is written on the card.”

A present?

My gosh, this day can’t possibly get any better!

Melissa and I bounce on the balls of our feet, our voices rise into high-pitched chirps as we jostle each other for a better view.

“Settle down, goofballs,” Dad says, as he digs through Mom’s hospital bag and pulls out three shiny, wrapped presents.

How thoughtful, I muse to myself. My little brother just made it to earth, and he has already gotten me a present!

We each grab our presents and tear them open like monkeys getting to the mushy part of a banana.

We squeal—Lisa Frank sticker books! My sisters and I ogle over the shiny stickers of beluga whales and sparkly flowers for quite a while until Mom reminds Sheila to look at our new brother’s name, written on the books.

“To my sisters,” a note reads on each sticker book. “Love, your brother, Sean.”

“Sean?” The name feels round and new in my mouth.

“Yes,” says Mom. “Say hi to him. He’s new to the world, and you are his big sisters.”

We put down our books and look again at the little bundle that sleeps content in Mom’s arms. He seems to smile in his sleep, as we three big sisters lean in and whisper, “Hi, Sean.”

Chapter 2

It is hard to remember the details of your life at six years old, but sometimes memories seem to rest like a lovey in a child’s arms. And I do remember meeting him.

The doctors did not know then what God knew. I imagine only God and Sean knew, and they waited patiently for the rest of us to catch on. I imagine that Sean, when he opened his eyes for the first time and saw his silly sisters, dancing around him and poking his little face, thought, I’m here. I’m here for them. And I like to imagine that in that moment when Sean saw the wrapping paper around his sisters, felt the warmth of his mama’s arms, and noticed the smile on his dad’s face, that life was an adventure for our boy.

When Mom and Sean came home from the hospital, we were a dizzy home full of love and silliness. Sure, there was bickering, and we sisters certainly fought over holding the new baby, but there are far worse things to fight over.

Life continued with baby boy and his three sisters doting on their new doll. But life did not continue in a normal way for Sean. The doctors started to express some concerns, and then they started to shake their heads when Sean came in for checkups. They finally addressed their concerns: Sean was not meeting milestones. He was not sitting. He was not standing. He was not making eye contact. His head was quite large for his size.

I do not remember the moment when I learned that Sean was mentally challenged. I do not remember my parents telling me. It was just something my sisters and I noted—like how my parents commented on Sean’s eyes being so large they looked like blue, bright moons or how they brushed back his hair and marveled that his locks had touches of blond mixed with brown. It was just something about him, just another detail.

Doctors never could diagnosis Sean, so they just settled with calling him “mentally challenged,” “retarded,” and “at an infant-like level.”

But I smiled, because my family and I had diagnosed him quite a while ago—he was Sean, or as we liked to call him, our Seany boy.

“Oh, Mom!” I said once, as I held Sean. “Look! Sean has my eyes!”

“No, he has my eyes!” insisted Melissa.

“Melissa, we’re twins. We have the same eyes!” I retorted back.

“No, we are fer—fertnal.”

“More like feral,” Sheila said.

“Fraternal,” Mom said, and corrected them both.

“Anyways, Sean and I have the same eyes,” Melissa declared and then batted her long lashes over her big, blue, doe-like eyes.

Yes, those doctors could keep scouring their textbooks and muddling over Sean’s symptoms, but Sean? He was far too busy being carried around like a prized stuffed animal by his sisters to mind too much what doctors had to say.

So, when the doctors told my parents they could not determine a diagnosis, we came up with one ourselves as a family: the Seany Syndrome.

Chapter 3

Sean’s toys lay scattered over the entirety of the living room, but Sean doesn’t pay them much attention at the moment. Instead, Sean is sitting in the corner and pushing the doors of the white cabinet open and shut. The soft fake silk of my Ariel princess nightgown swishes beside me and I skip, then tumble into a crawl, to wiggle myself beside Sean.

“Hey Seany,” I say. “Whatcha’ doing?”

Sean doesn’t look at me and stays focused on opening and shutting the cabinet. My knees bristle against the carpet and so I flatten myself out onto my belly and then, roll over to look at Sean from the ground. My head rests in the midst of Sean’s musical toys and the jaunty croon of his singing frogs and wind-up doggy feel like a cacophony of bugs stampeding into my brain. But I push them back a bit with one arm and try to tickle Sean underneath his chin to get his attention.

Sean blinks, as if waking from a dream, and swivels his large head in my direction. He looks down at me with his long lashes fluttering above his big blue orbed eyes and his lips draw back like a velvet red Broadway curtain to reveal a sneaky, cheeky smile. I know what that smile means.

“Oh no,” I giggle. “You are going to get me now, Seany boy.”

Sean’s eyes dance with the hilarity of the situation.

He balls his fingers into fists and propels himself forward on his bottom the short distance to my upturned face. Then, with vibrating energy and a chuckle gurgling in the back of his throat, Sean reaches for my nose and eyes. He pinches and prods at my flesh and I screech in between gasping giggles.

“You got me, Seany!” I scream. “You got me! Oh no! I’m a goner!”

Sean laughs hard now—his deep chuckles vibrate from somewhere deep in his chest until the fluttery blonde and brown wisps of his floppy hair quiver. His legs remain skinny and mostly unmoving in front of him, but his big ol’ head swings up and down as he laughs.

A bit of drool dangles from his laughing red lip and he bends his head down further toward me.

“Seany!” I squeal as the ribbon of drool hangs directly above my nose. But alas, the pearl of spit swings in the last second and lands right on my cheek. I groan and wipe it away with the back of my hand. That just makes Sean chuckle even harder and the mischievous glint in his wide, excited eyes brighten. I blink and stare for a moment, a smile still on my lips, at Sean’s laughing form swaying back and forth.

Who cares if Sean is different? I think to myself. I don’t even see what is so different about him except his big ol’ head sure hurts when he headbutts me. I chuckle again and Sean now seems to be studying me, too. He is still smiling, but he has stopped laughing and his languid fingers again study my face as he drags just the tips of his fingertips over my lashes and skin, like insect legs dancing on the surface of water.

Sean is hilarious and cute and I get to be his big sister.

I stretch my arms out like a starfish and smile under the feel of Sean’s cold studious fingers.

After just a few moments of this calm reprieve, Sean leans his forehead back down against mine and then, in one swift movement, lifts his head up again and butts hard against the small spot between my eyebrows.

“Ow, Seany!” I scream and let the numbing thick pain vibrate through my head. The room and Sean spin around me, but Sean’s delicious chuckle again envelopes me and I can’t help but laugh too as I drink in the sound of his giggles.

Sean and I tremble with our laughter and our wriggling, laughing bodies seem to dance to the nursery rhymes that continue to croak and croon from Sean’s toys.

Chapter 4

“On the left, you will see a darling squirrel, who is looking for some chestnuts,” Melissa says.

“Melissa, you mean acorns. Squirrels eat acorns,” I say.

Melissa dramatically rolls her eyes, puts one hand on her hip, and says with the bossiness of a nine-year-old who knows everything about anything, “Kimberly, I am the one doing the tour. It’s not your turn right now.”

I just as dramatically shake my head and then reach out for Seany’s drooping head. “Seany,” I say and try to lift up his big ol’ head with my small hand. "Look up."

“And on the right, you will see another tree,” Melissa says, pointing to our neighbor’s yard. I hunch up my twig-like legs in the sea green wagon and hoist my pretend hand binoculars to admire the weeping willow tree.