Your 20th Deathiversary. Twenty years ago, today, you left us. We still reach for you.
The "Brother Shaped Hole in my Universe" has only grown larger, and it's gravity stronger. I orbit around it, sometimes yelling into it in hope that you can hear me. I like to believe you can.
Dear Baby Brother,
You've been on my mind today, like many days. I find it hard to reflect upon the almost 20 years without you in my life. The unfairness of that still hurts, like paper cut upon paper cut upon paper cut. The older cuts eventually heal, but there are always more. I continue to collect memories of you in every time something great has happened in my life but you weren't here to see them. It has a bitter-sweet taste sometimes, the joy of including you in my internal moment (where I hold space for you to "be there too"), and the very real guilt of being the one who's role is the "survivor."
I cannot lie, my life has had it's ups and downs, and the ride hasn't always been super fun. But ups and downs are best when shared with family, who gather to celebrate with, or to help me when I cannot help myself. I miss you not being able to be that for me. I miss you everyday. Every time my life changes, every time something big happens in the world. Every time our family celebrates, or mourns. It is little consolation that you left this world, the only one you'd always known, when everything still appeared "OK" whatever that means. Sometimes I envy the timing of your exit strategy, Everything has changed so much in these past two decades the world would be unrecognizable to you, and there's a storm coming.
Twenty years on, my grief remains palpable, but I accept it now. Once I realized that, for me, there could be no return to "normal," once I accepted that my grief was the price of still loving you, I understood that it would never end. How could it? My brain still looks for you. I have learned a lot about the necessity of grief in these past three years. I am more human today than before.
I don't know by who's grace I deserved to survive through the pain to arrive at that conclusion, but I am grateful.
For us in the western world, grief has become like a demon we are meant to hide. Do not trouble anyone with it; get right back to work and make sure it doesn't interfere with the means of production. I used to think this was normal, and I worked hard to meet all those expectations. Now I know it's all bullshit. All of it. Capitalism is slavery slapped with a pretty bow so you think "you are making it." Truth is, its become unsustainable. Hence the aforementioned storm.
There's a band these days, called Imagine Dragons, that I really like. In 2013 they released a song called "demons." The poetry haunts me, but I find it so relatable, it provides me with the words to understand my own invisible battles. The lyric's speak to how we hide our pain to protect others from it, yet we yearn for someone to look, to really see us. It encapsulates my GenX existential dread.
Well it seems I am easily distracted today by my thoughts, but I am writing to you because today is the day you would have turned 50 years old.
Fifty years would have been an impressive milestone to celebrate with you. We could compare health notes (arthritis is a bitch btw). I found a really cool birthday card that I was going to get you, it was very you - Rebel black leather jacket, like the Michael Jackson jackets we used to have. I knew you'd like it. However the price tag was ridiculous, so this post is your card and present. Happy birthday, baby brother, wherever your travels have taken you.
Don't forget about me.
