Dean Krzmarzick, backstage at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater after a production of “The Music Man.”

Last time I wrote about my brother Dean. Now I’ll tell the ending to that story. I wish it were different. There is courage and much to admire, but a residue of sadness lingers.

Dean lost his sight before his third birthday to retinoblastoma. His blindness did not prevent him from being an exceptional student, a talented musician, and an all-around normal kid. He attended Faribault Braille School, boarding there during the week and coming home to the farm on weekends. The plan was that Dean would attend Sleepy Eye St. Mary’s from tenth grade on, where he would be a grade behind me.

Near the end of his last year at the Braille School, Dean began to get headaches. They gradually grew worse, even leading to nausea. The first diagnosis was that it was stress related, the assumption being that the impending move to a sighted school was causing nervousness. Dean was briefly hospitalized for a “psychological” condition. That upset him. He had always been up to any challenge and that diagnosis didn’t ring true.

Finally testing revealed a tumor that was putting pressure on his brain. The enemy had been identified, one that would prove to be unyielding. Years later, I asked two different doctors whether the retinoblastoma that took Dean’s eyes was related to the brain tumor and got conflicting answers. Regardless whether it was two bad cards drawn or a single awful card, it was horrible luck.

There was surgery to remove the tumor in May. An infection set in making for a long recovery. But by fall when Dean started sophomore year, there was optimism.

The teachers at St. Mary’s were good about finding ways to make school work for him. Obviously this was a unique experience for all involved. He was able to get some books in Braille. Classmates read other assignments to him. He used a typewriter with keys marked in Braille. Bruce Peterson was the band instructor and a favorite teacher. He worked with Dean on his trumpet; being in the band was a point of pride.

Sadly, this fling of normalcy making his way in the sighted world wouldn’t last. The headaches returned. I’m not sure of the timing, but sometime that year came a new, worse diagnosis. The tumor was now cancerous and it was growing in such a way as to make further surgery not an option.

The headaches began to be accompanied by other ailments. His hearing became impaired. He began having memory issues. His balance was affected. The senses and skills that a blind person depends on and develops so keenly began to fail him. .

He got through sophomore year okay, but junior year would be a different story. Chemotherapy began, and side effects hastened the decline of his hearing and memory. He had always been an A student; now school lessons grew increasingly difficult.

With the chemo, he began to lose his hair. Dean had longish hair that he was proud of, so that was another blow. Then something worse than hair loss. The cancer began pushing out the right side of his face, puffing it up. Dean was a handsome young man; now he knew that the disease was taking that from him, too.

None of this seemed fair to me. As a kid, having a blind brother seemed normal. But the bighearted little boy who took Dean by the arm was now a self-conscious gawky teenager. I was nearing the end of high school trying to make college plans, wanting to spend time with my friends. Selfishly, I didn’t want to deal with a sick brother. Stuck somewhere between the innocence of childhood and the maturity of adulthood, I felt myself withdrawing.

In school, I knew that Dean didn’t want me hovering around. Increasingly he needed help maneuvering the halls and classrooms. There were classmates who went out of their way to befriend Dean when it was not easy to do. For those I will be forever appreciative. Ironically three of them have since passed away: Bob Schwab, Boyce Steinke, and Pete Hillesheim were also friends of mine whom I miss.

In December, I was on a college visit in the Cities. Dean had an appointment that day, and I called my mom from a payphone to see how it went. She said that the doctor told her the chemo was not working, that there was nothing left to do. Dean was dying.

I argued with my mom. They have to keep trying. Can’t they attempt surgery? They have to do something! The rest of that day is blurry.

Dean went to school as long as he could. He tried so hard, it made all of us hurt. His fingers that used to fly across a page of Braille now crept, going back and forth on a line. He got angry with himself when he couldn’t remember something he knew that he knew yesterday.

I never talked to Dean about dying. The last days when he couldn’t go to school, I sat at the foot of his bed and we talked about classmates, the Twins, teachers. I’ve regretted that. But then maybe teenagers aren’t supposed to talk about death.

Later, my mom said that Dean told her that we shouldn’t feel sorry for him. He had done a lot of things and was glad for his sixteen years. He never complained and pushed forward as well as he could as long as he could.

I have thought about how to end this. I could end on the Friday morning in May when he died. Or maybe the funeral mass where I remember walking out behind the casket and looking up in the choir loft where the St. Mary’s’ band was playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Or I could end in a cemetery where I started this.

But while a book ends with the last chapter, sometimes the best writing is in the middle. I want to go back to a middle chapter. When Dean was twelve, some students from the Braille School went to the Chanhassen to attend a production of the Music Man. They got to go backstage and spend time with the cast and orchestra. The picture you see here is from that day.

Minneapolis Tribune writer Robert T. Smith spent time with Dean there and wrote a column about that. He began, “I saw and heard The Music Man at the Chanhassen Frontier Dinner Theater. The lad with me just heard it.” Smith goes on to write about their conversation during and after the play.

Near the end, Smith writes, “I asked him if he was bitter about being blind. ‘I don’t know exactly how to answer,’ Dean said. ‘Sometimes when the kids are playing ball and I play with them I get sort of disgusted with myself.’ He listened to the play a while, then said: ‘Usually you don’t mind. I don’t like to be helped a lot or pitied or anything like that.'”

A few paragraphs later, “‘ You know what?’ Dean said near the end. ‘For my piano recital this year, I’m going to do the William Tell Overture.'” Smith ends the column with, “I’d like to hear that.”

I would, too.