[9 min read]
“What happened when I said your brother’s name?”
Nothing. Everything.
That’s what went through my brain. As I choked back emotion. My body jolted, in the way that it does, attempting to shake off any semblance of feeling. If I feel, I can’t keep it together. I can’t fake my way through situations where feeling, being human, would be inappropriate. Sometimes, it shows on my face anyway. Thats what my therapist saw. Something I’ve been hiding for months – avoiding it like it doesn’t matter. I think we spent, what, three or four sessions on my brother, and then I moved swiftly past that trying to cork the explosive flood of past trauma and identity issues that erupted after my brother’s death. Even now, saying it, “brother’s death” makes me nauseous.
I’ve spoken about it to countless strangers, mentioned it in passing without missing a beat, not even a feeling, just a matter of fact thing that happened. And of course it did, the news said as much. Countless people lost their lives, so no need to feel bad for me, it happened to a lot of people, right?
But when I start to cave a little. When I can’t quite hide the intense eruption of pain, I can feel the muscles in my face change subtlety. And what kills me, is I know I’m making the same face my brother once did. He was always holding back how he felt, and you could see it on his face. We had the same eyes, my mom’s eyes. I remember when I got married, for a moment I looked towards my family sitting nearby, and my brother’s face was filled with emotion as he fought back tears. I was genuinely shocked and felt a strange sense of love and care in that moment. And it’s the same face I make for him now.
Part of it, is if I let myself cry, I might not ever stop. Because the tears aren’t just for him. They’re for my family. It’s grief for losing whatever family I had. It wasn’t much, in fact, not even sure it was good for me at times, but it’s all I had. I have rarely felt safe or secure in my life, but at least my brothers were there. I thought, that even after my parents die one day, they’d be there. My brothers and I had a specific dynamic. My brother J was hot headed but logical and smart. My brother Eddie was deeply empathetic and funny and laughed easily. And I was somewhere in the middle (now I realize I just switched depending on who I was with – but I always felt more at home with Eddie). We didn’t get together super often, but there was a sense of security and familiarity our tripod of personalities that seemed to fit together like a puzzle. Two ends of the spectrum, and then me. And that picture is completely gone – shattered. The balance is thrown off. And now, the only way to scrap anything meaningful together, to try and repair that sense of loss for so many things, is if I just ignore all the pain and pretend everything is all right. Like I did at dinner with my parents a few weeks ago.
And it’s even more than that. It’s the fact that my mom texts me constantly and she always starts with “Just checking up on you.” It pisses me off. It reminds me of when I came home after my suicide attempt in college, all of a sudden there’s concern, when I’d been suffering for months, years. When she stood by and watched her husband beat me, still a child, and did nothing. Never tried to get help for me even afterwards, just swept it under the rug.
Then, when she is feeling lonely or guilty, that’s when she is concerned. She’s never been there for me in the worst times, only when it’s easy, and when she doesn’t have to deal with anything hard. And so I was the one who held her, supported and comforted her, walking up to my brother’s casket, though I wanted to collapse myself. I don’t entirely blame her, but I haven’t felt supported, really supported by her, since I was a young child relying on basic needs.
And so my brother died, and my family, that is now only my surviving brother and my parents, put most of the burden of care on me. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over that. They were all so grateful and all I can feel is deep soul crushing pain for enduring so much of it alone, for being forced to be “strong”, when I’ve felt weak and worthless my entire life. I’m still dealing with it and I can barely manage. I feel like I’m failing and frankly, it’s easier if I just don’t care anymore.
My parents were not there emotionally for us as children and even backed out of taking care, of supporting my brother, at his death. My parents who are supposed to take care of us, just exited all of it. No one wanted to take care of him, be faced with the overwhelming pain of it, so I did.
I remember my dad’s words, “You take care of it. I don’t want to have to make any decisions. Look where it’s gotten me”. Or a week after the funeral, “Are you going to pick up his ashes?” they all said pleadingly.
I still remember that trip. I made the sickening drive back to the funeral home. It was a cold morning and the funeral director, only stepped halfway out of the building holding the door open with his foot, like he didn’t have time for this exchange. To him it was commonplace I’m sure, but it came off as cold and heartless. He handed the ashes to me like he was passing off a fruit salad, then disappeared quickly back inside with few words. I held the cold urn unsure of how to feel. Nothing left of my big brother. I didn’t cry then, I didn’t fall apart no matter how disturbing it was, just stood there numb, feeling the weight of what was once my beloved brother.
No one wanted to deal with the funeral arrangements, so I did. No one wanted to say any words, so I did. No one wanted to go pick up his ashes, so I did. No one wanted to go check on his house and the room he died in or clean up the mess. So I did. No one knew what to do with the twins, so I invited them over and over. No one knew how to communicate with the twins mom (Eddie’s ex), so I did…and still do even though I’m bad at it sometimes. And I did it all because I knew Eddie never got the care, support, and love he should have in his life, because none of us did. So I wanted him to have that, even if only at his death.
I should have been there for him while he was sick. But I was scared, I was scared the unthinkable might happen. He reassured me and I put it out of my mind and that was it. We had just buried my aunt a few months ago, she had also died unexpectedly of Covid, and Eddie helped carry her casket to her final resting place. When we left the cemetery, he was walking away towards his own car and I yelled out to him in a spontaneous burst of emotion before he disappeared into his car, “I love you!”
He half-turned smiling, “I love you too, Jess.”