Getting Alex Home

Hi, I'm Monique.

I first want to tell you about my youngest brother Alex. He was a perfectly normal sweet caring child growing up. He was SO intelligent, graduating from ECC with a civil engineering technology degree and then from UB with a degree in chemical engineering. Learning was a passion and I think he would have continued his education forever if he could have. He was the most responsible out of the 3 of us kids, always did his homework as soon as he got home from school where Tommy and I "didn't have any homework". Most of all he was hilarious. Alex and my other brother Tommy together could get everyone in the room cracking up. He was quick and witty. He loved to cook, especially Greek food, his first job was a cook at a Greek restaurant called Skaros in Depew. He loved animals, rescued many, most recently a cat he named Fish and drove with Fish from New York to Oregon. Fish now happily resides with my Mom and his other cat siblings. Alex taught himself how to read sheet music at a young age, he could play the piano, and the guitar, very well I might add. He was always building things, working on a project or a science experiment. He loved the outdoors, going for a hike, or tending to his vegetable garden. His pursuit of those joys, knowledge and adventure came crashing down onto our hearts.

As some of you may know and many more of you who don’t, on the morning of February 13th I received a phone call from the US embassy in Washington, informing me that my brother Alex had passed away in Thessaloniki, Greece. I then had to be the one to make the hardest phone call of my life and tell my Mom the news that no parent should ever have to hear.

Alex was diagnosed last year at 32 years old with schizophrenia. It was scary for us to hear that word, but it was especially scary for him. We felt relief knowing that he could be ok with medical intervention, but he said the meds made him feel "zombie-like" and "trapped". Unfortunately a common symptom of schizophrenia is believing there isn't anything wrong and taking meds would confirm what he didn't want to be true. Despite our family's best attempts to help him, his illness took control and he ended his own life. Unless you have gone through something similar, it's hard to imagine the questions, confusion, and crushing heartache we are left with. The constant replaying over and over in our minds of things we should have said, what could I have done, the what if’s and what not’s is torture.

Alex would sometimes disappear on my Mom and his Dad Paul for weeks at a time. At the beginning of February he didn't show up to work and took off on his final trip. He flew to Germany and then on to Thessaloniki, Greece where he decided that was the end of his life’s journey. I only hope he was able to experience the beauty of such an ancient place and smile on his final adventure.

To make matters worse, dying in Greece has posed some difficulties for our family to get Alex home. Up until recently you could not be cremated in Greece, while they’ve changed the law to allow people from other countries to be cremated, unfortunately there is only one crematory in all of Greece, and it's 11 hours from where he is. Also there is only one funeral home that we could find that speaks enough English, but of course it's not the funeral home that can perform the cremation. The cost to embalm and put his body on a plane is $7,000+.That doesn’t include the cost of the casket he’ll be transported in. We are struggling with the fact that he can't be sent until the 24th of February and can only be flown into JFK, not to Buffalo. So he will then be driven to Buffalo from JFK. My Mom will fly in from her home in Florence, Oregon to Buffalo to say her tearful goodbyes to her baby boy. After a long mournful journey from Thessaloniki, Greece to Depew, New York, Alex will be cremated and is where he’ll finally get to rest quietly.

Over the last few years everything changed for Alex. It's unfair that this disease overcame him. I’ll never understand it. We will miss him more than anything. I can still hear his laughter and I hope I always will. On behalf of my Mom and Paul I want to say thank you for the kind messages, and calls. They mean a lot to us. Even if you don't donate, thank you for reading this far. If anything, I hope it's a reminder to reach out to loved ones, check up on friends, just ask if they are ok, listen more and make time. If you have contemplated suicide yourself, please reconsider, and try to remember that every single human you come in contact with is going through something. Be kind.

Rest in peace my beautiful brother, Alexander Joseph Acara.