My Brother's Greatest Gift Wasn't Advice

I visited Denver in the summer of 1989, the city where my mother and father met as young adults and where her parents still lived at the time. I was a junior at Morehouse College then, home for the summer and restless, but clear about one thing: I needed to be with my brother.

Asa was in the throes of his battle with mental illness. He was struggling, but he was not surrendering. He was fighting through it, still thinking, still loving, still trying to build a life that made sense.

He had moved to Denver, Colorado, the place he and my two sisters were born, to be closer to Nana and Grandpa, our mother’s parents, to find a new way to fight the confusion going on in his head. Nana and Grandpa quickly became his anchor. Being near them gave Asa stability, quiet, and a new place where he could continue his fight to be “well” again.

Even in the middle of his illness, Asa never lost his business spirit. Before Denver, he had worked for a short time after college as a hotel and restaurant sales executive with the Westin Hotel. In Denver, after getting help from our grandparents to accept his illness and sign up for social security benefits and other support programs dedicated to assisting individuals living with mental illness, he started over the way he always did, by creating something. After visiting King Soopers, a grocery store in his neighborhood, several times, he built a flyer distribution business, hustling door-to-door for neighborhood shops and restaurants, earning just enough to keep moving.

But Asa never did anything halfway.

He hired people he met on the street, at shelters, in parks, and at mental health clinics, people who, like him, were navigating their own battles with mental illness. He gave them work, routine, dignity, and purpose. In return, many became fiercely loyal to him. Asa had a way of drawing people in, not by promising anything grand, but by treating people like they mattered.

I came to Denver to help him. To work alongside him. To spend time with my brother while I could.

On my very first morning there, while Asa was already out working, something happened that I did not expect.

It was around nine o’clock when I was jolted awake by the sound of the apartment doorbell. I had been sleeping on the couch and jumped up, disoriented, then quickly realized Asa had already left. I walked to the door, still half asleep, trying to figure out who would be ringing the bell that early.

When I opened it, a short, heavyset blonde white woman in her early thirties launched herself at me and wrapped me in a crushing bear hug. She was built low to the ground, with noticeably short arms that barely reached around my sides. The hug was awkward and deeply uncomfortable, her oversized breasts pressed against my stomach as I stared down at the top of her head.

“I’m so happy to see you,” she squealed, tightening her grip.

Her face was pressed into my lower chest, her breathing labored as she continued squeezing me like she had been waiting weeks for this moment. I stood there frozen.

What the hell is happening, I thought, glancing past her toward the sidewalk. Was this a joke? Was Asa about to walk up laughing?

No. It was just me and this woman.

Eventually she loosened her grip, but she did not let go. She pulled her head back and looked up at me, clearly disappointed that I had not hugged her back.

“You are Asa’s brother, aren’t you?” she asked.

Before I could answer, she kept going.

“You are one handsome man, you know. But you’re much lighter than Asa. Is your mother Mexican, or something?”

I waited for a laugh. A smile. Some signal that this was a joke.

Instead, she stepped back, flushed and serious.

“I’m not saying anything bad. I like Mexicans. I’ve seen your picture. You just look Mexican in person. That’s all. I just wish Asa would have told me what to expect. What if you were a serial killer or something?”

I had no idea how to respond.

“I’m Patty,” she said, as if we were already old friends. “Asa is like a brother to me. That means you and I are play cousins.”

“Huh,” I thought.

I tried to introduce myself, but she cut me off.

“You’re Hakim. I already know that. You think I’d hug some random stranger? Asa tells me all about you. You’re the baby brother. The smart one. The lawyer.”

“I’m not a lawyer,” I started.

“You will be,” she said confidently. “And you’re cute too. You just look mixed with something, and Asa didn’t tell me that. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll get over it.”

She was speaking rapidly now, clearly unsettled, and I could not understand why my appearance mattered so much to her.

Trying to calm the situation, I invited her inside.

She collapsed onto the couch and immediately shifted tone.

“That’s okay,” she said softly. “I figured Asa would be out. I actually came to talk to you. You’re a lawyer, right?”

I explained again that I was not a lawyer, that I had never opened a law book, and that law school was still in the future.

She waved it off.

“Well, if you’re planning to go to law school, you already think like one. Asa gives me advice all the time, and he said you could help. So let’s talk.”

Then, without warning, she burst into loud sobbing.

“I don’t understand why you won’t help me,” she cried. “What do you want, money? All you lawyers are the same. Fine. You’re officially on retainer. I’ll pay you tomorrow. Asa will vouch for me.”

At that point, I decided not to argue with her reality.

“Okay, Patty,” I said gently. “Tell me what’s going on.”

She wiped her face and leaned forward.

“It’s a landlord-tenant situation,” she said. “That’s legal talk. It’s about my roommate. And it’s complicated because my roommate is my best friend.”

“What’s happening with your roommate?” I asked carefully.

“Well, my roommate started sleeping in my bed,” she said, irritated. “And I have a two-bedroom apartment. And it’s pissing me off.”

I blinked.

“But that’s not the real problem,” she continued. “The real problem is my roommate stays out late and drinks too much. When my roommate comes home, there’s a lot of noise getting into the bed.”

I tried to follow.

“And then,” she went on, shaking her head, “my roommate started bringing partners into the bed.”

I stared at her.

“Partners?” I asked.

“Yes,” she snapped. “And I’m no homophobe, but I can’t take them having sex right next to me.”

I sat there, stunned.

“They’re having sex,” I said slowly, “in the bed, while you’re still in it?”

She nodded.

“And this roommate,” I asked carefully, “what’s her name?”

“Carl,” she said without hesitation.

I paused.

“Carl,” I repeated. “As in… Carl?”

“Yes,” she said, irritated. “Carl.”

I looked at her.

“Patty,” I asked, “is Carl a MAN?”

She nodded.

I sat back, speechless.

“And that’s not even the worst of it,” she added. “Carl disappears for days, then comes back like nothing happened.”

She went on to explain that there were times she had finally decided she was done with Carl. Times when she had planned to evict him for good.

“I even hired a process server,” she said proudly. “Paid him a lot of money.”

I blinked.

“But every time,” she continued, shaking her head, “he could never find Carl. Not once. He said Carl wasn’t home. Or nobody answered the door. Or that Carl must have moved.”

She leaned forward, frustrated.

“So I gave Carl another chance. And then another. And another. But now it’s just too much. If this continues, I am feeling like I may end up having to hurt him!”

I sat there trying to picture a process server chasing a man who could not be found, and what might happen if Patty began swinging at Carl.

“So, you are saying he comes back to your place every night, but now you can’t find him? This doesn’t make sense, Patty. Does Asa know about this? I’m sure we can find him if we work together and convince him to find another place, or at least stay out of your room.”

I was beside myself, wondering what advice I might offer to help solve Patty’s problem. But then it became even crazier!

After listening to my questions without ever looking up at me, she turned to me slowly and said, “But there is more to the story. So, I’m really glad that you are a lawyer.”

I was so worked up now that I did not even think to correct her again and remind her that I was still a college student.

Patty raised her head slowly, like the final act in a bad movie. She had real tears in her eyes, which caused me to listen for the next words to come out of her mouth with great anticipation.

“Carl is invisible,” she exclaimed.

But while the news that the person we had been talking about for the last twenty minutes was invisible should clearly have been the crescendo of an unbelievable tale, the big reveal about Carl’s status as an invisible man, to Patty, was clearly not about the fact that her roommate was invisible. Rather, Carl being invisible was brought up more to explain Patty’s frustration with her process server’s failure to serve Carl an eviction notice than to emphasize the fact that she believed she had a real roommate who just happened to be invisible.

I had no words. I said nothing.

But after a brief pause, she calmly explained the unexplainable, as if she was sharing a story she had just read in the morning newspaper.

“Carl vanishes for days at a time, returns whenever he wants, never pays the rent, never asks permission, and somehow remains my closest friend. I just can’t live without him!”

As I searched for something I could say to console her, I caught myself! Carl wasn’t REAL, and if I played along and pretended he was, then I would be doing Patty a disservice — or so I thought.

Patty sat on the couch in Asa’s living room in a mood I would describe as despondent. But then, after what could not have lasted longer than ten minutes, but felt like an hour, Patty jumped up from the couch, walked toward me quickly with tears forming in her eyes, and gave me a bear hug so tight that we both almost fell down together.

“I guess you never handled a case like mine, did you, counselor,” she began as she slowly released me from our hug.

Fortunately, I did not have to try to answer that question, because she had another comment before giving me the opportunity to respond.

“Don’t worry, little fella,” she began, before pausing to tell me to look her in the eye, and concluded, “I’m not sure you are cut out to be a lawyer. And I don’t care how much money you make, ‘Mr. Mexican who says you’re not Mexican.’ It’s not all about the money, and the sooner you learn that, the better. Otherwise, you will be no good to anyone looking for help.”

I couldn’t take it anymore and, as I placed one hand on Patty’s left shoulder, I said, “I am not a lawyer, I am not Mexican, and I’m not sure what just happened here with us!”

“What’s happening with US?” Patty questioned out loud as she began making her way to the door. “NOTHING is happening with us,” she continued. “What? You thought I was going to make the first move?”

Looking at me now as if I were despicable, she said, “I could’ve saved you some time if THAT’S what you’ve been after, because read my lips, ‘I DON’T DATE DOCTORS.’”

By the time Patty finally made it out the door, our forty-five minutes together felt like days.

Hours later, I was still sitting on Asa’s couch in silence, trying to process what I had just experienced. I did not know what to say when Asa came back, or how I was going to explain any of this to him.

When he returned home, I was still sitting in the same place. I told him everything, every moment that had transpired.

The hug.

The lawyer.

The bed.

The partners.

Carl.

The eviction attempts.

The missing process server.

The invisible roommate.

Her calling me a lawyer, then a doctor, over and over again.

Asa did not interrupt me. He did not laugh. He did not rush me.

When I finished, he paused. At first, there was pain on his face. Then exhaustion. Then frustration. And finally, acceptance.

He looked at me and said quietly, “I wanted you to see this, Hakim, because this is real life. And this is my life. And I hope it helps you in your own life.”

Then he added, “I love you, little brother.”

That was Asa.

He never laughed at Patty. He never dismissed her. He gave her work in his business; he was proud of the dignity the work inspired in her, the routine, and the place where she belonged. And through Patty, I learned how Asa spoke of me when I was not there: with pride, with trust, and with the belief that I could help, even before I believed it myself.

After that first day, Patty hugged me first every day she came to Asa’s place, morning, lunch, and evening. People laughed. I never did. Neither did Asa.

Patty began calling me her “baby brother,” just like Asa did. Even though she was clearly battling with an illness she had to fight every day of her life, I watched her have many happy moments. She was somehow able to make every day I was around her a happy day.

Patty was the life of the party! And she received the biggest hug from me when I left at the end of that summer.

Years later, when I think back on that summer, on my brother, on Patty, on Carl, on laughter mixed with sorrow and love mixed with struggle, I understand something I did not know then about Asa and the great love he passed on to everyone he came across, no matter where he was.

We were in Denver, Colorado, just off Colfax Street, where my brother’s apartment was, and not far from Martin Luther King Boulevard, where my grandparents, Elmer and Jessica Morrison, lived. My dad’s mother, Mimi, Mother Williams, was a Pentecostal minister, a hawk. Every Sunday that we were in town, my brother and I went to church with her.

That summer was an incredible summer. And like he had done in all of our interactions before he became sick, every day I was with him, he changed my life. He lifted me up. He made me better.

I guess the wisdom of the heart is seeing through the noise to the soul that’s still trying. It’s the humility to realize that brokenness does not mean the absence of worth, that the struggle to make sense of life is not weakness but courage in its rawest form.

It’s the courage Asa had. The grace Patty carried, even in her confusion. The compassion that made laughter possible in a place that could easily have collapsed into despair.

The heart also seems to be communicating to us that what we call “madness” in others may just be another way of navigating the chaos we all feel inside, that we are all trying, in our own ways, to stitch together meaning from pain, to laugh more than we cry, to smile more than we frown.

And maybe that’s what Asa wanted me to see, that every person, no matter how lost or strange their story sounds, wants love, purpose, and peace. That’s the real wisdom of the heart: seeing people not for what’s broken in them, but for what’s still reaching for the light.