An Untimely Death

My brother died this week. Bruce was a Marine Corps combat veteran, proud of his service and of the physical strength he acquired before and after, a devotee of the martial art Hapkido and a fierce fighter in appropriate circumstances and those that were not. When he finished Marine basic training, I flew from Boston to Los Angeles and we spent three days together on the beaches near San Diego, roasting in the sun by day and finding cheap places to eat and drink at night. When I returned him to Camp Pendleton, I was nearly detained by the Marine manning the gate, probably because I had clearly consumed too many cocktails to be driving. He asked where I had rented the car; I replied, LA. He said, “No, this car was rented in Hollywood,” to which I replied, “LA, Hollywood—I’m from Boston, it’s all the same to me.” He finally let me go, no doubt deciding that arresting me would require more paperwork than it was worth and if necessary, civilians should be stuck with it. Somehow, I made it back to Hollywood safely. Thanks to the Marines, I didn’t see Bruce again for at least a decade.

He was born when I was ten. I remember the rambunctious toddler who ran naked into the snow and blamed his misdeeds on our dachshund. “Who put your shoes in the toilet?” Mom would demand and Bruce would answer, “Louie did it.” Or, a little later, “The damn dog did it,” whereupon Grandma would scold Mom for swearing in front of her children. Mom soon realized that her best bet for maintaining any kind of control was to scare the crap out of us and her 95-pound, five-feet-nothing person succeeded, no matter how tall we grew.

Bruce was a golden-haired, blue-eyed child who became a flirtatious, humorous teen and man. He was fearless, riding horses bareback and barefooted, laughing and narrowly avoiding branches. He was a good judge of people and as a salesman, he was always the best. Unlike his curmudgeonly eldest sister, he was a natural people-person.

As a young Marine, he married and had a beautiful child he loved more than he knew how to express. Later in life, he was lucky to find a woman who matched him in fierceness and humor and they spent more than three decades together, until his untimely death.

One evening about two weeks ago, he was seemingly okay. The next morning, I found him lying face-down on the floor, unable to get up. After the police, the fire department, and EMS helped me break into his house, he lay helpless on the floor yelling, “I AM NOT GOING TO ANY HOSPITAL.” After 20 minutes of cajoling and berating him (me), we were thankfully in an ambulance.

We’ll never know when the blood clots and infection that somehow overtook every organ system began; its source was a medical mystery. I was waiting in his hospital room for a new test to be done to pinpoint its source when everything began to crash. He was sleeping; I held his hand while I watched his heart and lung functions systematically drop toward zero. His nurse shook him by the shoulders and said, “Bruce, wake up! Show me those beautiful blue eyes, come on now!”

The room filled with doctors and nurses and helpers; we all stood there, looking at the beeping computer screen, each other, and my brother, resting peacefully, those bright blue eyes closed forever.

Bruce Alan Ostrom
1962 — 2025
Rest in Peace