Soul Stories: When Death Strikes Too Soon

The last time my brother was alive on May 17, his birthday, was the year 2004. I’ve now lived through 12 years of birthdays without the birthday boy. He died just a few weeks later as a 21-year-old boy doing things 21-year-old boys do. I was 18.

I don’t typically speak about my grief because it’s never felt safe or okay. When I tell people that I lost my brother, they automatically think of my mom’s grief. And as a mother myself, I can understand why. I told myself that being strong meant being emotionless, and for years, decided it was best for my family to just keep moving forward with life and being the strength in the foundation. After all, I was 18. I had never experienced tragedy or loss, and these aren’t the things we openly discuss or learn to navigate.

A heart of darkness becomes a buried mystery as we keep on keeping on, living life as expected. We fill our days with activities, because when we are busy, we can temporarily forget. Grief becomes something we don’t have time for, as it descends farther into the memories and pointless questions of what might have been.

I also have never wanted anyone’s pity. I never wanted people to feel sorry for my experiences or treat me differently because of what I had faced. I wanted to prove that despite tremendous loss and brokenness, we can achieve amazing feats. After all, I graduated Magna Cum Laude just three years after my brother died. I got my Master’s degree two years after that. I needed to show the world that I was okay. And strong. And whole.

Until I wasn’t. And I couldn’t hide.

I couldn’t balance the demand of needing to show everyone I was okay when I wasn’t.

I couldn’t return home for normal family dynamics because nothing was normal anymore.

I couldn’t worry about whether my own sadness would be a burden for others.

I couldn’t keep pretending to be whole when I was broken.

So, I stopped.

I admitted my brokenness and how that had manifested. I went to therapy. I cried, I wrote a book, I crawled onto my yoga mat, and I cried all over again. I did that over and over again until I could forgive myself for not knowing how to grieve and for being afraid to grieve, until I could accept that sometimes life gives us things that don’t happen for a reason and all we can do is give it our best every day.

Today, I choose wholeness. I choose to love myself through the process of figuring out how to be okay. And most importantly, I choose to fill up my days no longer with distraction, but with purpose.

xojf