I'm going to make this as quick as I can.
My brother just died last month. We grew up together with incredible, God-fearing parents. Faith in God was never a point of contention between us. We drifted apart as adult siblings often do, but were never on bad terms. When we were growing up we were known for above average intelligence. We attended a Christian school and had the privilege of not being hit with the new wokeness in the schools. We both got to go to college on full ride scholarships.
I was still in college when covid hit, in Georgia. My brother had graduated the year prior in Arizona. When the lockdowns hit we started to become close again. When the vaccines were first released, he made the local news by being one of the first to proudly get the shot and encourage others to do the same. I encouraged him the entire time.
And then things changed. Only DAYS after he got the shot, he started to become distant. In 2021 he hardly spoke to me at all. He was finally forced to talk to me when our father died of a heart attack back home in Michigan, and we had to deal with that together (our mother had already died some years back so we had no immediate family left). And again we started talking regularly. This time, I was the problem.
My brother was 100% behind Q. He regretted taking the vaccine (it was the Moderna one) and called it the worst mistake of his life. I told him he was crazy and tried to convince him the trauma of losing our father had destroyed his ability to think clearly. He asked if I was still on God's side and I said I was, but in retrospect I think deep inside I knew I had been pushing God away. He would try to tell me about declassification, and in all fairness he wasn't very good at explaining FISA warrants and I'm not sure how well he truly understood any of it. He was a mathematician and probably undiagnosed autistic, so he struggled to explain what he really thought.
I cut him out of my life entirely at some point. I don't even remember why. Every time we would speak he would BEG me to store supplies and prepare for the worst. I blocked him on all social media and even blocked his number. Late last year he sent me a letter in the mail informing me he was having heart complications, which because of our father's heart problems I attributed to unhealthy life choices and genetics. I unblocked him, and despite his condition he showed no fear and instead immediately asked me if I had prepared for the worst. I lied and told him I had just so he wouldn't worry.
When I went to see him last year just before the holidays, I found out how wrong I was. Before he had health problems, he was working out every day and had built an in-home gym. The only food in his house, which he had designed and built himself, was whole foods and deep frozen game meat and local beef. There wasn't a drop of alcohol in the whole house and he had even quit vaping years before. He should have been so healthy, but he looked 10 years older than he was and stumbled from room to room instead of walking normally.
When he told me he knew (not guessed, not supposed, KNEW) that he had injured himself with the vaccine I tried to convince him he was wrong. I was sure he was wrong. But I was just in complete denial. For additional context, I never did get the vaccine. I was in a rural town and was able to stick to myself well enough to feel I didn't need additional "protection." I was going to get it, but always found some reason to put it off. Whenever I realize that the voice of God himself was always directing me away from the vaccine, my spine shudders. Some part of me always knew that was the case.
He died. When he was found, he was slumped over on the front porch and a UPS driver called 911. He had been dead for several hours, and the autopsy (which I had to outright demand because nobody was going to do one) showed his body was filled with tumors. I later found that he had been to several doctors repeatedly and while they had diagnosed his heart issues, they never once mentioned tumors. One of the tumors deep in his organs was the size of a golf ball.
I am still going through all of his things and organizing his estate, which he left to me but I will probably need to sell. HIs house was very different when I came back this month. He had unlocked every drawer, and the tables in his office and kitchen were stacked with materials he had collected and I am sure he wanted me to see, including BOXES AND BOXES of printouts from 8chan, books on learning Sanskrit, and some books that were specifically about Q.
As far as I can tell, he didn't leave any letters specifically for me or for anyone else, though I suspect his lawyer wouldn't tell me if he had left something for someone else.
Sorry for the long ramble. I'll cut to the chase. His house was on an old reclaimed farm he was attempting to rehabilitate. I don't know how successful he thought it was going to be because the land seems pretty hard to work. It's very rocky and there were stacks of rocks he pulled from the ground and piled up for removal everywhere. There had been a dilapidated barn he had constructed a couple of rooms in with just 2 by 4s and doorways. I do not know what was in there because I never entered in the last time I was here. But I do know, based on several prior conversations, that whatever was in the barn was very important to him.
Well, the barn is gone. It was already burned down when I got back, despite being in photographs of the scene when his body was found (it was only 200 feet or so beyond the porch to the east). The rubble had been removed too, and I want answers. That's slightly beside the point.
I am writing this from his kitchen table, which I guess is my kitchen table now. I'm heartbroken and confused, and really just needed to get this off my chest. I was wrong, and he was right, and the proof is that he died. I will be departing for my home in Georgia in less than 48 hours and will be packing my things from my apartment and bringing them here. I have taken the piles of rocks he had stacked and arranged them over the charred ground where the barn had been into a large "Q" and will be planting a garden in the center as a memorial to him. Again, I will probably need to sell this house and land, but I am going to make it completely clear that this is now sacred ground that only a Patriot deserves to own.
I made fun of you. I made fun of him. And now I'm alone with my problems and a philosophy degree I cannot figure out how to use, and memories of a brother and best friend I will never see again because of the damn vaccine. I owe you, and I owed him, an apology. I will never be duped again. I've seen the light and once you've seen it, you cannot unsee it.
Noah, if you can somehow read this, I am so sorry.
You are not alone.