Happy Birthday

You should have turned 51 today. It was not a banner day. I cried all the way to the grocery store. I cried so hard that I couldn't see the road. I composed myself until I discovered that they don't carry Raisinettes at our grocery store, which made me completely come apart. It got better until the cashier made the fatal mistake of asking me if "I found everything I was looking for". More tears.

You should have turned 51 today. I wanted my kids to eat Raisinettes tonight after dinner while I told them about you, about the Uncle they will only know through my stories and memories.

Why didn't you turn 51 today?! Why did I ever let go of your hand after you died?! I didn't WANT to, but, truth be told, I was in uncharted territory. The man from the funeral home was there to take you away and I let go. I shouldn't have. I should have held on.

I should have never let you go.

Clarity

Clarity

I am trying to figure out why I am so incredibly worked up about the situation and I think that, for me, it comes down to the following.

When I was tested for CJD and the genetic markers for it I knew that the test results would change our lives forever if they came back positive. What I did NOT realize at the time, though, is that even a negative result is life-changing. The guilt that follows is incredible and is something that family members carry around daily and wrestle with for years, if not forever.

There is also that Second Chance feeling that occurs, as if the surviving sibling feels like they have an extraordinary obligation to fulfill some Higher Calling, to right the wrongs of the world. I wear no cape and claim no superhuman abilities, but I do feel the overwhelming obligation to make the world right. When I see injustice I cannot stand idly by. It seems physically impossible. It doesn’t even feel like a choice to me. Some may say it is a calling since it is something I have done since childhood, but the intense PUSH to ensure that those who cannot speak for themselves find a voice through me is no longer optional.

Tonight I remembered that day, two years ago, when I got the call from the Dr and heard my test results. I remember thinking that there was nothing that he could say that would make me happy. How could I be happy when I get life and he got death in the Great Cosmic Lottery? Either way it’s a punch in the gut. I cried when he told me. It was The Great Way I Failed Him for the third time. A good sister wouldn’t have let him die in the first place and if she couldn’t have stopped it then she would have at least went with him. As a consolation prize she could have, at the very least, had the disease, too. How could I possibly feel GOOD about that?

I’ll live the rest of my life trying to make it up to him.

I never

I never even considered the idea of living the rest of my life without you. I just never thought it would happen. I thought we would all sit around in our rocking chairs, watching our grandkids playing, talking about the 'good old days'.

It seems like my good days are few and far between since you died.

I miss you. I don't want to live the rest of my life without you, but I don't want to die right now, either which leaves me with no choice but to be here.......still without you.

I still miss you.

two years

I can't believe that it's been two years since you died. Last year I sat and watched the clock at 3am and drank wine and wrote. I think of it as "The Annual Ritual", but really I've only done this for two years now, last year and this one because exactly TWO years ago I was holding your hand while you died. I held onto you until your hand turned cold. I didn't want to let go and I'm sorry that I ever did.

Farsi

I just met a man who offered to teach me Farsi. When he asked why I want to learn the language I said, "because my brother knew it".


What I didn't tell him is that I want to know how to speak in a language you knew, maybe say what you said. I'm still trying to figure out why you died and this won't do the trick, but it may help me feel closer to you.

Because now that you are gone I feel less and less 'close to you'.


It just doesn't feel like the holidays. I'm knitting a scarf for Dennis and I wish I could make one for you, too.

Doesn't feel like Christmas

The holidays are quickly approaching and it doesn't feel so much like Christmas. It makes me remember the holiday season two years ago when I was running around like a crazy person trying to be "merry and bright" while watching you die.


It is such a strange dichotomy: loving the holidays and feeling so sad because I miss you. I am knitting a scarf for Dennis and wishing I was knitting one for you, too.


It's not the same without you. That Jim-shaped hole in my heart won't ever go away.

Pissed Off Pain

“My heart never knew loneliness until you went away. I’m missing you.”


Adultsiblinggrief.com

On Uptown Girls Dakota Fanning said, “But now you are going to give me Mad Cow Disease and my brain will get eaten away!” Ohgod, it was like a punch to the gut. I felt sick, like I had to throw up. They were making a joke about what killed him and I certainly wasn’t laughing.



There was a commercial on TV recently for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The text read, “It’s like dying and going to heaven……without the pesky death part.”

Uh-huh.


I’m sure that when my brother died he thought, “this is just like eating a peanut butter cup!” fuckers.


Your levity about something so incredibly, excrutiatingly painful just pisses me off. You are a bunch of clueless fucks who sit around in offices making jokes about something that you are not mature enough to handle, so you mock those of us who have actually had to deal with it those of us who have had to face it head on, whether we wanted to or not, whether we were ready or not.


But, it is so goddamned important, isn’t it, that you sell another bottle of shampoo or that you convince more sheeple that some purse with someone’s name on it is important so you mock us, you ridicule our pain, our reality that we live in while you generate your counterfeit reality.