From the President, 1217 WYBJ, Vol. 40 No. 6. 10

AuthorRob C. Jarosh, Hirst Applegate, LLP Cheyenne, Wyoming
PositionVol. 40 6 Pg. 10

From the President

Vol. 40 No. 6 Pg. 10

Wyoming Bar Journal

December, 2017

The Conversation I Wish I’d Had

Rob C. Jarosh, Hirst Applegate, LLP Cheyenne, Wyoming

It’s a little scary when you see you missed a call from a sister-in-law who you rarely talk to except on birthdays and holidays. On April 1, 2014, while getting ready to take my son and daughter to the pool on a Spring Break visit to Arizona, I saw that I missed such a call. When I called back, Angel was sobbing. Her husband, my little brother Chris, had overdosed on morphine, first prescribed to him many years before to relieve the pain from a low back injury he suffered while serving in the Persian Gulf War as a member of the United States Navy. Two surgeries did nothing to relieve his chronic pain, and over the years Chris was prescribed a steady diet of painkillers.

In the ambulance Chris suffered a pulseless cardiac arrest. He also suffered an anoxic brain injury and stroke. He initially survived, regained consciousness a few days later, and spent two weeks at Mercy Hospital in Mason City, Iowa, before transferring to the Veteran’s Hospital in Des Moines. An MRI confirmed permanent brain damage, and for weeks our family and doctors wondered whether and to what extent he would recover. When Chris was “awake,” eye contact was intermittent at best, and he did not speak; sometimes he would squeeze someone’s hand. On April 24th, an aggressive infection began ravaging his body. Eight days later, on May 2, 2014, my little brother died. Christopher Joseph Jarosh had just turned 41. He left behind a wife, a teenage son, his mother, and me, as well as in-laws, cousins, aunts, and friends.

Chris was my only sibling. We grew up on various military bases, an experience that lends itself to being close. Some of my happiest memories of childhood involve being a big brother—tennis matches (I was John McEnroe; I made Chris be Bjorn Borg), boxing matches (I was Mohammad Ali; I made Chris be Leon Spinks), pool tournaments (I was Minnesota Fats; I made Chris be Willie Mosconi), and karate tournaments (I was Daniel Larusso; Chris was Johnny Lawrence, and the tournament always ended with a Crane Kick). Being a big brother was good stuff. In early adulthood, I remember how proud I was while Chris served in the Navy, when he got married, and when his son was born.

But after we both had families and Chris moved back to Iowa, where our...

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