I just listened to the first clip that ABC has released of Stephanopoulos’ interview with President Biden. He said that he was “exhausted and sick with a cold” at the debate. Right before listening to the president I had an 8-minute phone call with my Big Brother that ended at 6:18 because “I’m too tired.” The president tonight and in the debate sounded IDENTICALLY to my brother. The president still doesn’t have strength in his voice. My brother has got something that has lasted for a month. He doesn’t even have the energy to go to the VA. He sounded like a person near death—he’s NOT, but that same far off voice as if he has one foot in this world and another in wherever we go. I was alarmed and told him that if I was up there, I would physically take him to the VA. 

The only relevance to this is that I am convinced that both my brother and the president, 83 and 81 respectively, have the same thing, probably one of the new COVID variants going around, but something. I have never heard my brother like this, not even right after his wife died. I don’t know if he even has the strength now to grieve as he did two years ago.