Ron was my younger brother. He was Ronny as a boy. He was also Bo, because my father wore a bow tie to work. When Dad came home, Ronny was waiting for him with a bow tie around the soft cotton collar of his polo shirt. My mother tied it for him. Parents back then knew how to tie bow ties.

Ronny and I shared our childhood, on our bikes and sleds and with our bats and balls.

Ronny loved baseball. His life roller-coastered up and down with the Red Sox. Mostly down. When our sister, Gayle, was born, he dubbed her playpen “the bullpen.” When we wanted to play with Gayle, he’d signal to me to bring in the lefty and I’d haul her out of the bullpen.

Ronny and his friend, Kevin, played catch in the winter with a baseball wrapped in a plastic bag. Being a kid, Ronny was distracted by another activity and left his glove out on the wooden picnic table in our back yard. The glove spent the winter hibernating under the snow. In the spring, when the snow melted and it was time to play ball, his glove was easy to find.

He also loved fishing, particularly from a charter boat, because charter boats always served cheap hot dogs. He was good at fishing. The only thing I ever caught was a starfish. (It gave me a battle.)

We had many adventures in our little town, like the time we started a radio station on the roof of our station wagon.

After his bar mitzvah, as he entered his teen years, Ronny became Ron. He played on a Little League team but he eventually lost interest in baseball. He replaced baseball with the news and with all-night radio. He became withdrawn, spending hours alone, pacing and muttering. And yet he still showed flashes of his old self. He could imitate anyone on television and all of the uncool old people at our synagogue. He did voices. People think I’m the funny one. It was Ron.

My parents bought him a car so he could commute to college. He loved the freedom it gave him.

He ate popcorn from a paper box while he drove and tossed the empties into the backseat. He was always a slob. I know. I shared a bedroom with him.

Ron left our family in 1985. We eventually found him in New York City, but he didn’t want to have anything to do with us. We had no contact with him for 38 years.

He lived hand-to-mouth, though he was never homeless, addicted, or imprisoned. In his last decade he formed a new family, a group of Christians who met in each other’s homes and who took the notion of caring for the sick and poor seriously. They fed him after their services. They were patient. He finally left off muttering and started talking to them. They got him on Social Security and Medicare. They did what they could, which was a lot.

They arranged a meeting between Ron and me. I brought my niece along as backup. This meeting solved nothing and answered nothing.

That was three years ago. Ron died last week, in the bedroom of his apartment. He was 67. I can’t imagine the stresses he faced in his life, nor will I ever know how he survived in Manhattan given how far he had traveled down the road of mental illness.

It’s been a lifetime since I sensed him standing beside me.

This wasn’t the closure my family wanted. But it’s closure. We’re grateful that we know what happened.

If there’s anything you can take away from what I’ve written, then I suggest you call or text or write a sibling or a friend or a co-worker from the old days and say hello. I’m as guilty of not doing this as anyone. But really, it’s easy. It’s as easy as eating popcorn and throwing the box over your shoulder.