Five years

I might as well inaugurate this blog with the hardest post I’ll ever write.

I have this feeling that I need to get some things off my chest, but I’m not sure what I’m going to say. If I can write about this subject and publish it to the world, I know I can do the latter again and again.

Today marks the five-year anniversary of my younger brother’s death. Out of respect for him and my family I won’t divulge too much on how he died, but suffice it to say it was sudden and unexpected.

I rarely talk about him nowadays. We don’t really bring him up much at family gatherings anymore. When we do the room will often become silent and awkward for a moment.

When I do talk about him I like to reminisce about the good times. Although I never let him know it, he was my best friend for long periods of my life. Some of the greatest conversations I’ve ever had with another person were with him.

There are other times when he pissed me off so much that we would go for several months without speaking at all. We grew apart during the last four years of his life. I don’t like to think about those times too much.

Sometimes I’ll bring him up as a example on what not to do—to show the consequences to someone when I see them heading down a dark path. Perhaps that’s a way for me to rationalize his death. If I can use his death to save someone’s else life, maybe that will make it hurt a little bit less.

I hate that moment when my dad will say how much he misses him during a phone conversation and I hear that crack in his voice like he’s about to cry. I can sense the vulnerability from an otherwise stoic man, and it makes it all feel so real again. So I quickly change the subject like some kind of callous asshole.

He shows up in my dreams a lot. He’s almost always portrayed in a positive light. It’s better than the other way around, but it does crush me when I wake up and realize he’s not around anymore.

My life is entirely different than it was five years ago. I’ve lived in four different states. I changed jobs several times. Friends have come and gone. I lost 170 lbs…and then gained back 60. Our Saints and Seminoles won championships. I became an uncle…twice! I got to know my best friend and asked her to marry me while we were backpacking through Europe. I would give anything for him to be able to follow along with me through my journey and for me to experience his.

It baffles me to think he would be turning 30 in January. I wish he would have given himself a chance because he was finally starting to figure things out and he had a support group to help him get to where he wanted to be.

My memory of him is fading by the day. Five years from now he will occupy a smaller part of my brain than he does today. He will appear in fewer dreams, and he will be brought up in fewer conversations. I hope none of that happens, but in all likelihood it will.

At the very least I can look back on this five-year anniversary and be grateful to him for providing me the inspiration to finally put myself and my writing out into the world.

I love and miss you, Jarrett. And although I don’t talk about you as much these days due to selfish reasons, that doesn’t mean you’re forgotten.