Back to life

The day my brother died I was in my way to Vancouver. I spent four days there not knowing. My parents didn’t see the point of telling me. I walked next to the ocean in the morning, and hiked around mountains. It was cloudy and quiet. Sometimes it rained and people walked without umbrellas. I heard friends playing guitar and the fiddle on the beach at sunset. My moms voice haunted me, something was wrong. Something couldn’t be fixed but I didn’t know what.

He struggled with depression for ten years. For ten years the little kid inside him wanted to die. For ten years we fought and negotiated and pleaded and loved in desperation and emergency.

Now it felt like there was no more fighting. I walked around feeling lost. The ocean was so big. The mountains were so big. The sky was so big. Why were they so big?

All the people I met since then touched my heart in their own way. I felt their voice murmuring above me like a shimmering light that came and went while I was floating underwater.

I never had a lot of real friends, or family. I grew up with him, mostly just him. My first friend, the witness to my life. The person who taught me how to share, how to care about something that wasn’t me.

I walked around a small beach town not knowing what to do with my days. I cried on the beach many times. I gave myself the impossible task to bring him back. I asked too much.

Today I realized he was gone. Even though it hurts I landed on this being the best answer. I tried everything else. I tried forgetting and distracting and lying to myself. I didn’t like where that lead me. So now I’m just accepting it and coming back to reality. Back to my body, back to my life again.