Submission 209

To my Brother,

Despite the years that have passed since you could no longer carry the weight of your sadness, l still find myself oscillating between the raw pain of losing you and the dull ache of missing you. And maybe worse than that I find every day is soaked in guilt.

Losing you felt like losing a significant part of myself - or maybe more accurately, the part of me that you were so integral to crafting became a part of me that was replaced with an angry, bereft shadow of its former self. Grief lives so permanently in my back pocket that I wonder what I’d be without it in the same way I feared what I’d be without you.

I feel ashamed to say there are good days. Days I’ve loved and beautiful memories made in the years since you died but I find it deeply shameful to admit the world didn’t end with you. There were times that I wanted it to and willed it to but life persists and in that happiness persists; it’s something I’ve felt both deep gratitude and terrible resentment toward. Everytime I smile it’s shrouded in what I know is an unjust guilt but one I can’t shake regardless.

I hate there is happiness without you but I wish the persistent nature of joy was something you could have held on for and these memories were made with you and not forever darkened by your absence. There was a place for you in every positive experience since you left and despite how you felt about yourself - how depression made you feel about yourself - not a single one wouldn’t have been made better with your presence. You felt like you were never capable of achieving your best but I never felt you gave us less than that. You brought laughter and happiness to so many yet couldn’t afford yourself the gift you gave us. It a gift you were most deserving of.

I love you and I miss you and that despite the complexities and hurt of it all, the love for you goes on, and on and on x