At twenty five years, it’s about all the things he has missed. It’s the longing for everything that didn’t happen, the things that couldn’t happen, because he’s no longer here.
Grief has been a strange road, one that cannot truly be explained. It started with being all-consuming, a disbelief that this stage in life was even real — that he was gone. That once I had a brother and now I didn’t. It was unpredictable, it took over all of me. The emotional roller coaster would come in waves, moments of being able to regain control of thoughts were shadowed by stretches of utter emotional chaos. What had just happened, and how would life continue?
But, somehow, life continued.
By year ten, with the work I was doing with Active Minds, grief began to take a different shape, mostly now just missing him. Missing his humor, his insight, and his partnership. His voice. Getting used to navigating life and family as an only child. And at the same time, getting through daily tasks and putting one foot in front of another. It was working everyday to learn to live life fully again, even in the shadow of my loss.
And today, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of my brother Brian’s suicide, the ache is for everything he has missed. The things he will never do, the pining for things that never could be because he simply is no longer here. I wish I could call him up and hear his voice again, knowing that the person on the other end of the phone got me, understood all of me, like only a sibling can. I wish I had someone with whom I could reminisce about childhood memories we shared. I really wish he had met my now husband, been around to watch my kids grow up, and been with me as I have had to navigate family members’ unraveling and going through additional loss. I wish I had nieces and nephews, and we vacationed together to give the cousins their own memories to share. It’s impossible for me to believe that he never experienced cell phones, or the tragedy of 9/11. And that he missed out on seeing the D.C. football team finally make it back to the playoffs this year.
While I have all of those moments, life at twenty five years also looks like being able to genuinely smile at things I know he’d appreciate. Laughing with childhood friends as we remember funny teenage times with him. Feeling a touch of relief knowing the things that once would have bothered him no longer can. Knowing that he made my life better because I was lucky enough to know him. It looks like confidence in how to show up for people when they experience their own loss, because I know what worked for me — and what didn’t. It looks like resilience, finding strength to endure the things that seem unbearable because I’ve been through the worst already. It looks like knowing yourself and appreciating what you have because you know what rock bottom feels like and have come out on the other side. It looks like life being lived.
A handful of years ago I heard a parent speak about the loss of his child, and how, although no grief is ever comparable, the impact on the remaining sibling was just as profound as it was on him. The sibling had a whole lifetime ahead of them, he explained, while as a parent, he had just a few decades left. That statement struck me deeply because never until then had I heard sibling loss recognized with that level of gravity. It’s hard to explain the feeling of losing the person who learned life alongside you, the only person who really could ever understand you fully. The longing for what could have been, had we had the chance to grow old together. And yet, life keeps moving forward, and in that forward motion, I’ve found the strength to continue.
Life isn’t the same, but it is happening. I may not have the people and experiences I once imagined, but I feel so lucky for the work that fulfills me so deeply, and relationships and lessons learned that have enriched my soul. And as I reflect on all of this, I smile thinking that Brian would be pretty proud if he was here to see it all today.
