Last month — July 26th, to be more specific — was my late brother’s birthday. He would have turned 30 this year.
And he would have hated it. Hated more than anything that he was not only getting older but, gasp! physically aging. Mind you, he was also the same guy who felt like he needed to work off that tiny bit of flab on his inner thighs and made certain to point out the same in other people.
He was ridiculous. He was annoying. A mean, Grade-A Asshole who had zero qualms about hitting below the belt when he felt like it.
He was also protective of those he loved and I was the lucky older sister whom he coined his favorite person, even from a hospital bed where others wept before coming through the door while I made him laugh with the sharp barbs that was our own language.
I saved my tears for when I was alone. Plugged them up so well and deep inside me that when the bad news came — the final news came — it felt like a dam had burst and I was surprised that I was able to stop once I started.
I still do that now. Whether it’s healthy or not, I’ve become very good at bottling up my tears if something’s painful enough for them to come knocking on my front door. Stashing them away in a dark, twisty place until it’s more convenient for me to let them run amok.
Even my mother, who feels it excruciatingly worse than I ever could, finds it difficult sometimes to understand what it is I’m feeling. About him. About most things, really. But, mostly him. So much at times that if I bring him up casually in conversation, it surprises her still.
I miss him all the time. Sometimes in a good way where I remember a silly impersonation he had made once or that damn quirk of his where he would tug at my shirt sleeve to know what the material was.
And then… I would be washing the dishes or laughing at something and I would remember the last time I ever got to see him: Lying in the ICU with a tube down his throat. His illness have worn away at the energetic young man he once was to reveal skin and bones and shadow where his light once stood. His once full head of hair thinned down to the scalp and flesh wrinkled and matted with lesions.
He looked like he had aged several decades in a matter of months and I hardly recognized him.
I would remember my eyes filling as I finally took on the task of packing up our Christmas tree that we had kept standing well past December so that when he got out of the hospital he would able to see it.
He never did. Instead, he died in a sterile hospital room with my mother next to him as they turned off his oxygen.
My last memory of him had been two nights before, my mom knowing he wouldn’t be lucid enough to interpret my presence so that I could see him one last time.
The next day I packed up the tree and the day after that, he was dead.
Forward all these years later and there’s a bit of a tradition now during this time of the year. We take time off from work. Do something fun. Happy. Something he would do.
It’s always sad. Always. Whether you think that whole ‘time makes things easier’ thing is a whole lie or not, it is always sad. My salty frienemies didn’t make an appearance this time until I was, once again, all by myself. One minute I was having a gay ol’ time of it and then the next…
To say that I sobbed would have been a severe understatement. I mean, I cried cried. That kind of bone deep crying. Face puffy and snot bubbles landing everywhere.
I cried until I couldn’t anymore and I know it’ll happen again and again as long I am alive and breathing and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.
Because it means I get to fully remember my wonderful, loopy, unique jackass of a brother. I get to remember his flaws. His snark that was even thicker than my own. His obsession with high fashion and obscure Spanish/Wes Anderson films.
He may be gone but, I get to be lucky enough to remember him. And remember him I do.
