A Moment in Grief

Octobers are always tough for me. My brother died fifteen years ago this month. I get to relive those feelings every year. I usually post a song and say very few words, but this year seemed to hit me harder. Here's an excerpt from a Facebook rant I went on. I hope it helps someone else deal with their grief.

15 years ago today a life was unnecessarily taken from this world. The sun will never shine as bright as it used to.

I've been more contemplative lately. Everything I've been through since he was taken away; the good, the bad, the elations, the rock bottoms.

I'll never forget the look on my Mom's face when she burst into my room to tell me that he was dead. Looking back, I immediately tried to be everyone else's rock to help them through with zero regard for my own grief. I shut it off. "No time for it (grief) now, I'll get to it later."

The inevitable (and unreasonable) thinking that the wrong son was taken.

He was so proud of my musical aspirations...but I didn't find any real success in music or radio until long after he was gone.

I think about how proud he'd be of his son and daughter.

I think about how it's such a different world now than what it was then.

Every failure of mine since then has had an added sting because I haven't had a brother to lean on. The man could perk anyone back up.

Every success has also come with the sting of him not being around to share it with.

I remember the looks and treatment I got after he died, presumably because I wasn't grieving like I should've. I was in shock! Ask someone whose only brother died if he's okay it doesn't matter what he says out loud the answer is F***ING NO I'M NOT. It took me years to finally grieve, and by then I was breaking down without realizing it.

Too many friends got pushed away because I'd subconsciously deem them my new brother, then inevitably lash out because they weren't. It took a therapist to figure out that behavior. Some friendships I've been able to mend to varying degrees, others are lost.

These tidy anniversaries must affect me more, or maybe I'm less willing to pretend everything's perfectly fine today. I can't pretend that he's smiling down on me from above. What's left of him is in a box on a shelf. It's not a happy way of seeing things, but it keeps me in the moment...even when I'm thinking about 15 years of being an only son.

Got'damnit I wish people would be better to each other. When it's over, it's fu***ing over. The dead can't regret; the living can.

This rant will probably be Exhibit A when the involuntary commitment happens. Cheers to a speedy trip to the asylum.