Brother I M Dying Summary

“Brother, I’m Dying” describes a personal story of Edwidge Danticat’s family’s anecdote and struggles with political issues, Haiti’s dangerous and poor living situation and their troubles of immigrant in the United States. The book starts with the news of both Edwidge discovered she is pregnant with her first child and her father, Mira, is suffering from pulmonary fibrosis. She started to recall two years ago, her father had urged to stay in New York rather leave for Miami with her husband. His reason was that families should stay together, which he knows too well the regret of being absent without family support. Edwidge’s parents had left her and her brother, Bob, in the care of their uncle Joseph and Aunt Denise when she was four. Edwidge

sees her uncle Joseph as a second father because his tenderness and treated her as his own. Edwidge states how and why she writes this story “What I learned from my father and uncle....

This is an attempt at cohesiveness, and at recreating a few wondrous and terrible months when their lives and mine intersected in startling ways, forcing me to look forward and back at the same time. I am writing this only because they can’t” (p24). It tells us how great influence by her biological father and uncle have given to her, and how deep their relationship has developed. Despite her father has absent from her life for so many years, how did he regain her love and build their relationship. On the other hand, though her uncle isn’t her biological father, how did they bound like a father-daughter relationship. Besides the direct relationship between Danticat’s father and her uncle’s brotherhood, her relationship between her father’s parenthood and the relationship between her and her uncle, this book demonstrates the complexity of the triangular relationships between three of

them.
Edwidge’s uncle Joseph, as a minister, “He talked a lot about love. God’s love, the love we should have for one another. He knew all the verses for love” (p.32). Though listening to his sermons, sharing coconut-flavored iced on their walks, spending most of her childhood living with her uncle and the extended family, Edwidge grew the deep attachment with her uncle. Joseph is very considerate and caring, which makes him almost also like a “mother” figure to Danticat. However, Danticat always well aware of the fact that her uncle is not her real father; yet, she still loves his kindness and getting very well with him. “As a child living in his house from the time I was four until I was twelve years old, I remember my uncle’s voice being crisp and distinct: deep and resolute, breathy and jingly when he was angry, steely and muted when he was sad” (p.32) Danticat became her uncle’s voice because of his tracheotomy, which she is proud of and excited to speak for him. When Danticat and Bob are leaving, she questions, “Even though we had been expecting it, how could I tell him that I didn’t want to leave him? What difference could it make? For better or for worse, I had to go. These were my parents, my real parents, and they wanted me to come and live with them“(p.105). Though some children might consider the people who ever raise them as their “real” parents, Danticat doesn’t get confused about the relationship, but use it to develop a unique relationship with her two fathers. When Danticat’s father gave her a typewriter she asked for, it was supposed to give her uncle for work and writing back to her father. But since she not longer has to write to her father, she wrote to her uncle instead. (p.117) It shows how Danticat considers both of her fathers’ feeling, and doing her best to keep them both happy.
On the other hand, Danticat’s biological father, Mira, who Danticat barely remembered from her childhood. When the first time her father came back to visit them, she thought, “my father had mostly been a feeling for me, powerful yet vague, without a real face, a real body, like the one looming over the pecan-hued little boy who was looking up at Nick, Bob and me”(p.86). She felt distanced and detached from her real father. Probably the feeling of abandoned and distrust, that causes her decide to leave her family to Miami with her husband and not feeling comfortable to tell her parents when she has a big announcement to make. However, she knew deep down Mira is her real father. Though she struggled to integrate herself into her father’s life in Brooklyn at first, she still cared and worried about him. Despite her father wasn’t physically present in her childhood, he wrote letters which words truly mean from his heart to his child's. When he gave Danticat a typewriter, it shows how much he values his child's words, even if he had to work hard to regain their trust. Even Danticat knows who her true father is who is not her uncle, her father still addresses her uncle as Danticat’s father. He would say “Do you see your children?”, which shows how her father sees him as much important to himself as his children. When Danticat and Bob was about to leave Haiti, they said to her father that her uncle seems sad, to which her father replied “I suppose that’s how it is sometimes. One papa happy, one papa sad” (p.109). This statement demonstrates the complexity of the relationships between Danticat, her father Mira, and Uncle Joseph.
There’s a Haitian saying, “Pitit moun se lave yon bò, kite yon bò.” When you bathe other people’s children, it says, you should wash one side and leave the other side dirty.

I suppose this saying cautions those who care for other people’s children not to give over their whole hearts, because they will never get a whole heart back. I wonder if after we left for New York, my uncle felt that way(p118). Danticat always thinks whether her uncle saw her differently, or saw her as his own child, it seems like there is a part of her desire her uncle’s love or approval. Though she knew that her uncle isn’t her father, but only her uncle, the years, spending together and the “writing” skill from both of them have tied their relationship closer and probably influence and develop Danticat’s life. Danticat also presents how her father’s illnesses that shapes others’ lives, how strong he was and how willing he was to share others his values. As Danticat recorded and cherished her father’s value, she named her daughter after her father’s name, which indicates how important his father figure is to

Danticat.