Discovering Our Faraway Brother

The author and his sister had always considered their brother, Drake, to be their parents' problem or, as most would say, tragedy. And their mother wanted it that way. She never encouraged them to become involved. When she died at age 89, however, Drake became their responsibility.

So in 1996, reluctantly, apprehensively, they decided they would fly over to Switzerland to be with him for his 70th birthday. They would go without their spouses, just brother and sister.

For 66 years, Drake had been living there in a home for mentally handicapped children. He was by now the patient who had been living there the longest...and he spoke no English. Neither the author nor his sister spoke German. This would be the first meeting of all three Hale siblings. And this would be their first effort to truly know him.

Discovering Our Faraway Brother is essentially about the week that followed-and about a very different world.