MHM Magazine

Issue 3 | 2021 | MENTALHEALTHMATTERS | 47 MHM LIVING WITH... LIVING WITH - DEATH OF A BROTHER I t was during Covid Lockdown that I decided to make good use of the time and clear out some boxes in the garage.  By chance I came across the death notice of my brother: ‘Ewout Boukan Korb - Born 2 March 1956 - Died 27 Feb 1981’.  Memories of a series of events flashed through my mind. February 1981 and I’d just started second year medical school at the University of Cape Town. It was a Friday evening after an intense week of classes, tutorials, anatomy dissection, physiology and biochemistry practical’s when I was urgently summoned to see the Dean of Medical Residents.  Nothing could have prepared me for the usual utterance of: “I have sad news. I have just spoken to your parents and your brother passed away earlier this evening”. Then came the hug and the coffee but little can describe that numb feeling of unbelief, shock and mixture of emotions. Here is the phone, please call your parents and talk to them.  I didn’t hear anything they said, the voice inside me just told me to get home to Klerksdorp as soon as possible. Saturday morning and I drove to Rosebank to get the soonest plane ticket back to Johannesburg.  Sitting on the plane for the two- hour flight my mind flashed to my Human Behaviour course:  ‘The 5 Stages of Grief’ described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her book “On Death and Dying”.  But I just feel nothing, I’m in automatic mode, how does this apply to me?  Where is the denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally the acceptance? Getting back home to Klerksdorp to my parents and remaining brother, I was again confronted with emotions never felt before.  At times it felt I was living in a dream.  The masses of messages, flowers, the phone that never stops ringing, deliveries of food and all I wanted was to be left alone to try and sort out what emotions I was feeling and what to do next. Finally by Monday reality starts setting in. We need to go to the funeral home to sort out the funeral.  Arriving at the small building in town we were greeted in a reception with plastic flower wreaths and endless photos of different coffins and tombstones.  The crunch came when we were asked for somebody to identify the body before it could be transported from Pretoria to Klerksdorp.  No, I couldn’t do this, in my anatomy dissection I’d just been cutting up bodies for the last two months. As the week unfolded until the funeral the following Saturday morning, I managed to hear the story from my grieving parents. My brother was visiting friends on a farm outside Pretoria.  Having had some flu-symptoms he asked his hosts for some medication and was directed to the bathroom cupboard. Soon after taking the medication, he became violently ill and realised he’d taken the wrong medication.  Starting to lose consciousness he was urgently transferred to the HF Verwoerd Hospital (now Steve Biko Academic Hospital) in Pretoria where he remained in a coma for four days and died late the Friday afternoon.  With my background knowledge in psychology, I was aware that he’d been suffering By Dr Frans Korb Psychiatrist from depression for most of his life and was quite resistant to getting any form of treatment. My mind started questioning, was this perhaps a suicide? I also knew I couldn’t share these thoughts with my family. A few hours after the funeral my parents organised family friends to take me back to Johannesburg so that I could catch my flight back to Cape Town.  I’d already missed a week of my studies; how would I catch up?  I was struck with guilt; I should stay at home to support my parents and family. After arriving back in Cape Town, I took the airport bus into the city and then the train to Observatory Station. Later that night I was walking up Anzio Road back to the Medical Residence. It was