My brother and I were barely in touch until he robbed a bank

This is a First Person column by Donna Papacosta, who lives in Toronto. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

My younger brother and I were raised in a third-floor walkup in Queens, New York. With a two-year age gap, John and I were close as kids and even shared a bedroom with bunk beds for a while. 

Later, we grew apart as adults when he moved to Miami and I started a new life in Canada. He and his wife had a son and a daughter. I married and gave birth to two girls.

My relationship with John, nicknamed Pepo, changed irrevocably when I received a shocking phone call from my sister-in-law: "Your brother robbed a bank." It was hard to believe; he'd never been in serious trouble before.

Actually, he committed this crime twice. Jobless and desperate, he got away with it the first time, so he went back for a second "unauthorized withdrawal" a month later, as he told me on the phone.

The 99-cent toy pistol hidden in his pocket classified his actions as violent, so he was sentenced to 41 months in prison in Florida after quickly pleading guilty. Not knowing what to do, I wrote him a letter after he was in prison. I told him how sorry I was about his situation; he was relieved I wasn't angry with him, and he replied immediately.

Soon Pepo and I became pen pals. I assumed prison was a nasty place, and worried even more when he described bugs in his food and the random violence. He told me he was surrounded by "murderers, rapists, lawyers and stockbrokers." His letters were full of stories, longhand, on yellow legal paper, from our shared childhood that I either hadn't known or later stories where I hadn't considered his perspective.

He shared how he got a job as a shoeshine boy at age 12 after our father abandoned the family. He wrote about playing stickball, stealing treats from the ice cream man, and getting pummeled by the nuns at parochial school. Some stories were hilarious, others harrowing. I alternated between raucous laughter and heartbroken tears as I read each missive.

I encouraged his storytelling. He'd retort, "Oh, you're just saying nice things so the guards don't find me hanging off the bunk with the band from my boxers around my neck." Yet, over the years in prison and halfway houses, Pepo began to think of himself as a writer. He placed Oprah on his visitors' list at the prison, just in case. 

Our occasional phone calls buoyed my spirit. I would smile each time I'd hear, "This is a call from a federal correctional facility. Press 1 to connect," because I knew I could chat with him for the next 15 minutes. 

In our "normal" busy lives, there had been little time for our sibling relationship or sharing our hopes and dreams. And yet, through my brother's incarceration, I felt closer to him and we developed an intimate connection. We shared feelings that perhaps we would never have revealed if he'd been on the outside. He wrote about his relationships with women and his dependence on alcohol; I discussed my marriage, kids, divorce and dating life. He repeatedly told me, "I don't know how I could survive this hellhole without writing to you. You saved my life." 

My role as big sister had never before been this important.

And yet, I struggled with the idea of sharing my brother's situation with others. I confided in my closest friends, but I was embarrassed to tell most people that my beloved sibling was a felon. They didn't know his sweet spirit as I did.

I visited him in 2009 when he was home in Miami as a free man. He'd asked me to return the stack of letters so he could do something with them. He never had the chance. A year later, Pepo fell and hit his head while he was home alone. He sustained a fatal brainstem injury. I was devastated to lose him. He was only 52.

After his death, I spent years transcribing and editing his stories into a book. As I reviewed the letters, I recognized his strength and his intelligence, as well as the damage done by our father's abandonment. I was no longer ashamed of my brother; I proudly shared how he'd survived the horrors of prison and tried to get his life back on track. Today, reading the published memoir, perhaps his children will feel closer to this smart, funny, broken man. And I will always feel conflicted that such a terrible thing brought us closer together.

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