Loss of A Brother

Death can never be fully recognized and understood until it happens in your life, until you lose someone very close to you. And even then it seems like a dream as your world slowly loses color and those around you go on vibrantly as if nothing much has changed. You sit in a crowded room and hear the laughter around you. Voices drone on and conversations move forward. You cannot get upset with those around you. Why would they know? You are but a stranger in a room. You find yourself wondering more about the strangers around you. What have they lost? What has made their heart ache and break into a thousand pieces? What has made their world stop?

Losing a loved one changes your life forever. The memory of them stays with you forever, sometimes making you laugh or smile, but at other times it leaves you to cry alone in the late hours of the night as the pain seeps deeper finding new places to rest. The loneliness you feel comes from these memories— from it being your story and yours alone. No one else can understand how you are feeling because this was your relationship, your special bond, and your own precious moments being recalled.

Words cannot explain the bond that has been severed or the empty hollow place that now resides in your chest. Those who do know will nod and give their condolences, but they will never fully grasp what you have lost. And so it becomes easier not to tell them or not to talk about it because pretending that life will go on as normal is a lot easier than dealing with the truth, and it is not their burden to carry.

So you are left alone with your thoughts, alone in your head. You wait to cry until the pressure intensifies and holding it in is too much to bear because you need to release the emotions that are building like toxins in your blood stream. You suffer in silence while ripping open the wounds so they can finally breathe. Just for a little while let them breathe...

It is easier this way. It is better this way because no one will ever be able to give you what you really need. No one will ever bring your brother back.


(J.B. 1989-2010)