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How Timely

If you’re anything like me, you grew up in a fairy tale, surrounded by siblings who stood ten feet tall. You grew up with parents who were as brave as superheroes. You grew up naïve to the world around you.

Don’t get me wrong; I was well aware of what the news never failed to talk about. I knew that mothers and fathers could lose their battle with cancer. I knew that children could get kidnapped. I knew that houses burned down and car accidents happened almost everyday.

But I had created a world where my family was untouchable – where nothing could ever happen to them.

BECAUSE THEY WERE MINE.

Five years ago a police officer knocked on our front door. It was 10 o’clock at night and I had just gotten ready for bed.

“There’s been an accident. You need to come to the hospital right away.”

By this point I had seen enough TV shows to know this was not what you wanted to hear from a police officer…especially not at a 10 o’clock at night and especially not when your older brother still hadn’t made it home.

I lost a brother that day. I lost a cheerleader, a mentor, a best friend.

The safe space I had created so easily disappeared and I was left to tackle the world without the one who had always paved a path before me.

There’s no word to describe the loss of a sibling. If you lose a spouse, you’re a widow. If you lose your parents, you’re an orphan. But if you lose a sibling, you just become the girl who lost her brother.

My therapist described it as a losing a limb – if someone tells you it gets better with time, they’re lying to you. Yes, cuts get better and wounds do heal. But when you lose an arm, it’s foolish to await the day that it “gets better”; you simply learn to live with one arm. I learned to do the things I know he would have liked. I learned to listen to the songs we sang together in the car without breaking down in tears. I learned – and I am still learning – to function normally without him just a phone call away.

However, “normal” has lately been like a blanket too short for a bed. Sometimes it covers you just fine and other times, it leaves you in the cold, shaking. And I’ve come to find the worst is that I never know which one it’s going to be when I wake up.

It’s been almost five years since that day. Some days the ache is a little less than before, but on others it makes me want to lock myself in my room. And some days still, I am stuck in what feels like a void.

There is no statute of limitation on grief. There is no time limit to waking up crying or having to leave the grocery store because you see their old friends. There is no special cure for those dull aches in your heart that don’t seem to ever go away. But coming from a sister who thought she would never find the light again, know there will come a day when the thought of that loved one brings a smile to your face instead of leaving you gasping for a breath that you cannot find. There will come a day when you find yourself talking about them and you do not feel uncomfortable. There will come a day when the universe sends you a sign to let you know that they’re doing okay.

AND THERE WILL COME A DAY WHEN THE 19 YEARS YOU GOT WITH THEM BECOMES ENOUGH FOR THE 19 MORE YOU’LL NEVER HAVE.

As I’ve come to find, there is no other love like the love for a brother and no other love like the love from a brother. And if you’re lucky to have a brother who is also your best friend, that love is going to cover you during the best of times and, no matter what, hold your hand through the worst.

By Kady Braswell

For days now, I’ve been experiencing a lost of my muchness. Or actually, in all honesty, it has been how many months now. I guess I never stopped to think why, until yesterday when I had the whole day to myself. Grief does that to you, I’m assuming.

I haven’t thought about myself in a while now—it has always been other people. I have been told not to be selfish; to always think of my parents, grandparents, etc. but I’m re-reaching my breaking point because I haven’t fully actualized my grief towards this loss. Like Summer from The OC, I’ve channeled my energy towards other things, and though I don’t regret anything, I’m just overwhelmed with this feeling of helplessness and I think it’s too late — I feel like everyone has moved on but me.

Backtrack: my brother passed away one hundred and eight days ago. Sounds like a lot right? But in actuality, that was three months ago. You wouldn’t say we were close because most of the time, these past few years, I was angry at him. I felt like I had to walk on eggshells around him because everyone was and I didn’t want to — I wanted him to man up and get over his depression, and that he was always stealing the limelight from me. And last July 25, he did it. The thing we never assumed he would do. It’s not like he had a hard life or anything, most things were handed to him on a silver platter. His life was just not moving at the pace that he wanted, and that I don’t know, disheartened him? I really don’t know how depression works, I wish I understood though.

That’s what’s making me feel uncomfortable now: the whys and what ifs. And like most things in life, these are what kills you. The knowing that maybe if you did something, or didn’t do, differently things wouldn’t have turned out this way. I just don’t know, like there is no one to talk about with things like this because everyone just wants me to keep being that spot of light. I’m not allowed to be sad, or mad, or ungrateful. I have to be happy all the fucking time, and I’m tired.

People think being a positive person means you’re happy 24/7, but it’s not. I’ve realized that you can’t be happy all the time, as if you’re on drugs or anti-depressants, you just have to feel everything and let it pass through you. I’ve been losing myself because I’ve been forcing myself to be happy for everyone because that’s what they need from me. And I can’t anymore, I can’t be happy for everyone because I have to feel all my repressed emotions. Everyone has been so selfish, all me me me me me but they never stopped to think that I lost someone too.

Aside from being tired, I guess it’s safe to say by now that I’m angry. I have had to put my life on hold, again, because I’m not supposed to be selfish. And I really want to press the play button already. I want to go out with my friends, and go clubbing, and stay out late, and find a job, and like, you know, date and fall in love and get married. I don’t want to be the girl with a dead brother that people look at with pitying eyes. I just want to be me again. I hate being pitied, that’s just not who I am. I want to feel like myself again. But I don’t know who she is anymore.

I’m really hoping I find her soon, though. 🌻

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I really don’t know why I’m doing this, or for what, seeing as I haven’t used my Tumblr in so long but whatever.

For those of you who don’t really know me, or haven’t known me for so long, you’d be shocked to hear that I have a brother. Or had a brother. I’m not exactly sure what the politically correct term is right now. I’m still in shock over what happened, and I don’t know how to process it. I guess I’m using this as an outlet for all the weird emotions in me right now.

I guess all I want to say is, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being angry at you when I thought you were being a selfish prick — sometimes, I still do. But really, I’m sorry for not needing you as I did when I was younger. I’m sorry I grew too strong for you to handle, and that I couldn’t help and protect you as what you once did for me. For some reason, our roles reversed. I became the strong one, and you the weaker one. And again, I’m sorry for not being able to protect you from the demons that have been attacking you.

I hope you find peace and happiness now. I hope everything that was troubling you has passed already. I hope that in your afterlife, you become less brought down by your hardships and that it’s more filled with sunshine and rainbows instead of thunderstorms.

I guess, I’ll see you again — I know you’ll still be there for all my milestones in life, as you’ve always been.

Bye Ahya Hans, I love you.