A World in Which to Be by Xochitl Alvizo

My brother moved to Europe sometime between 2012 and 2013. He went for love, moving there with the woman from Germany who he planned to marry. He didn’t marry her, but he did marry someone else from Germany. He lived there a good while, but then also in Spain, then back to Germany, and eventually Basel, Switzerland. That is where he was living when he died on Monday, June 12, 2023, just three weeks ago, five days before (what would have been) my dad’s 70th birthday. I’ve now lost my dad and my brother, the two men in my family, within a two year period. It sucks – it really sucks to lose the people that help bring meaning to your life, those whom you most enjoy and from whom you learn life’s biggest lessons.

I learned a lot from my brother (I’ve written about this before), but one of the biggest lessons was about freedom and trusting one’s own path in life. My brother, like my dad, was an existentialist through and through. He was also an “atheist, anarchist, gutter punk” (his words), who lived the punk lifestyle everywhere he went, which in part meant that he mostly lived on the streets. That didn’t change until he became a “domesticated punk” in 2017 at the age of 40 when he got married and lived in a small apartment with his wife, Steffi, who was also punk herself. Still, even though they were “domesticated,” they went out to beg everyday (or “spange,” to ask for spare change), and were part of the community of street folks in Mannheim, Germany, who all knew and looked out for each other.

He traveled his whole life (starting to run away from home at the age of 14) and found the punk community everywhere that he went in the world. Punks always take each other in, sharing the squat or spot they stay at at any given time, and pooling their resources every day. It’s its own socialist way of living in community. My mom even shared in the lifestyle when she visited him in Spain and stayed at the community squat with him. She lived the adventure for a brief stint too, but as a visitor only!

My brother was funny, lively, loud, and enjoyed each day for what it brought – which was usually a lot of adventure. He was also always proud of me, though couldn’t understand why I would struggle with staying grounded and in-tune with my own being. For him, staying grounded in himself was a no brainer – it was his vocation. When I needed the reminder, he would say, “You have to do right by you, first. If you are not right with yourself, how can you be right with anybody else? It doesn’t work.” It’s a lesson I’m still integrating.

My dad would say something very similar: “You come first–if you don’t exist, nothing exists.” He was effectively saying that if you are not existing as yourself, if you were not being true to who you are, then you are not truly existing, and if you are not truly existing, then nothing else is existing for you either.

There is a way in which they have both been teachers to me about feminism, as the practice of affirming oneself as fully human and fully worthy, which is not default for women in this world (cis or trans). In a world of hierarchical existence, frameworks of inequality and injustice are default, and my dad and brother were men in my life who affirmed my right (and all people’s right) to exist fully and freely. They helped contribute to a feminist world, encouraging me, and others, to claim our space and our right to our existence as ourselves.

Unlike my dad who died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack, my brother had been sick for a few years now and his death was somewhat anticipated. His internal organs were struggling to keep up with him and had begun to shut down in the last two years especially. His punk living caught up with his body—drugs and drinking were commonplace for him—but his spirit was punk rock all the way through.

He was very accepting of the fact that he did not have much longer to live, and was accepting that this was consequence of his particular lifestyle. He also tried to prepare my mom for his leaving, repeatedly telling her, “Don’t worry, fea (a nickname between them), I’m happy. I’m ok.” He would say to her, “When I die, you can cry a little, cause of course, you’re a mom and you’re going to cry. But only a little, because you have a son who lived happy and lived his life exactly how he wanted to live.”

And he did, he lived well, and he lived joyfully. He was good with himself until the very end, dying the way he lived, happy and free, and in his own way. May we all be as fortunate.

My last picture with him, in 2019, when my mom and I visited him and Steffi in Germany. You can see my mom sneaking in the background.