How does a journey begin? Is it a picture of a great place to get away from one's current experience with time? Or, maybe a job that needs to get done? Or is it a desire to find out what's out there, on the other side of something yet not well-captured in one's mind?

That was it for me: something not well-captured in my mind. It was real now. His end was near. There was no hope fore recovery. It was just wait or forget about him. I couldn't bring myself to forget. After all he's my brother.

I started the short drive up the hill.

"Password accepted. Please enter."

I can't remember the exact words. But the wide, brown gate slowly opened, allowing me to complete my trip at their front door.

"Come in", she said with a forged smile crossing her lips. "Thanks for coming. He'll be glad to see you."

"Hey!"I like the view." I offered to break the uncomfortable silence.

"Sure."He replied.

"I just thought I'd come by and see how you were doing."

Actually that was an awkward spittle of words. It was obvious he wasn't doing very well.

A member of their church had offered to build them a house on the hill at cost. It was a rather exclusive village of homes that sold at the higher end of the current real estate market. But my sister-in-law had hoped the view would brighten my brother's attitude.

I sat next to the bed he hadn't been getting out of very often these days. Cancer had been working its silent evil on his body for two years now. When he'd come to visit us in Las Vegas he'd been using the services of a wheel chair.

We moved back to town. He'd moved into bed.

He was the first to break the uneasy silence. "What have you been doing lately?"

"A lot of school stuff."

"And your family?" He stared straight ahead at a television that had now gone silent. Only pictures danced on the small screen. "I can still press the mute button."

This would be the first of many visits up the hill, splattered with conversation and wary of strong feelings. Until one Saturday, when the view of rolling hills covered with green trees reaching skyward,shifted.

The sun splayed the room with warm rays amid a few family members gathered around. He was sitting up and observing the conversation.His upper body, the part not anchored to his bed, began to wobble a bit and a blank stare gave my sister-in-law a silent clue.

The pastor was hastily called to his bedside, where my brother laid back against a willing pillow. A company of thoughts seemed to push their recognition through the fog; his pastor was there and had something important to tell him.

I'll never forget the picture that scene drove into me, from the view projected through the open doorway. The pastor opened his Bible and led my brother into a place beyond what we could experience.

There was a lengthy space of time where I'd turned away and joined the other warm bodies in the living room. Until another call was made.

My brother was wheeled out on a gurney, zipped neatly into a long, brown body bag. He was gone! It all happened in slow motion. It was the end of a short life's movie.

I was skin and bones wrapped around a column of air, washed out and empty. I'd come to the end of myself.

At this moment, as they silently moved him out the door, my journey began.