Without getting into my late brother’s health, I wanted to mention a couple of mysteries surrounding his death. One was his computers. When my older brother came to town a few weeks back, he solved this one for us. Doesn’t talk much on the phone due to deafness, but talks lots in person, so it was good.

Years back, when my sisters and I went to his apartment to deal with my younger brother’s belongings, I was really puzzled. I’m used to seeing good computer components and my little brother worked for the top big-technology company in the country as an engineer. But everything in his place was as if from the 1990s. Big CRT monitors and so on.

I figured his mental status… blah blah. Perhaps he used the equipment at work and didn’t work at home. And… you know, paranoia. Maybe he threw things out. When we packed up what was there, his will said he wanted all computer stuff to go to our surviving brother. So we did that, not really examining it.

At the time it didn’t occur to us sisters that the government had been there first. Anyone who used to have a clearance like his… you know. And mental deterioration and then suicide. They had to be careful. Maybe my oldest sisters realized it, but I never did. Too much else took up all my brain room.

But I’m still wondering about the absence of running shoes. Not a pair in the place (except those he was wearing), and we couldn’t find a gym membership where he might have had a locker. For someone who ran in 19 consecutive marathons, this was not reasonable. But of course when people die, so many things are left unanswered. Some of these mysteries become almost dear. You cling to them.