Real Talk • A Post on Loss

I was thinking the other day about how, for the most part, my blog lacks insight into my life. And I want you guys to be able to get to know me, because I want to get to know you! I'm going to make it a point to add a bit more about myself and what's going on in my life. And I've got something I need to get out, so I figured this would be a good way to start. Maybe some of you guys can relate. I lost my younger brother, Kyle, in a motorcycle accident August the 11th. He was the kind of guy that knew no strangers, made everyone feel like family and made us all laugh until we cried.

September 26, 2013

The first funeral I attended for someone other than great grandparents was in 9th grade for some boy that me and my bestie knew through mutual friends. And since that day I have lost about 10 people that I know and every time they get closer and closer to me; with these last two being a best friend and my brother. We lost our friend Adam a week before our wedding. It was one of the most emotionally challenging times I have ever had to endure. It is very odd to have so much good energy and excitement built up for one of the happiest days of your life and then get the news that one of your friends, who grew up with your fiancé, has passed. We're talking two very extreme emotions on opposite ends of the spectrum. I would become so overwhelmed that I thought I was going to burst; but I had an end game in sight. I had to get through this wedding. I couldn't afford to get off track, so I powered through the wedding and enjoyed our honeymoon. You could probably say I never fully allowed myself to mourn losing our friend. So of course, with the loss of my brother four months later a lot of the Adam emotions started to come on stronger.

When I got the call from my dad Sunday morning my mind didn't know what to do with the information. It kinda just froze; I wanted to laugh like it was a joke, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs, I wanted to ask every question imagine able, but I just said okay. My brain was so confused it didn't know what to do other than pause and attempt to make sense of the information it was just given. Of course you always want someone to have been mistaken, not my brother. But that was not the case. My 22 year old bright eyes and bushy tailed little brother was taken from us. I was in a kinda shock induced numb state for what felt like months, when really I think it was about a week. I didn't want to talk about it, I really didn't want to talk at all. Tears flowed freely and I had no control of it. Like the sorrow was literally leaking out of my body. It wasn't a sobbing cry; they just flowed slowly and persistently.

 I have never been one to see dead loved ones at the funeral or to condone the ritual, but I had to see him. I went to the viewing not knowing what I was going to do. I had seen the first boy who died and he didn't look like the person I knew and I said never again. But something deep inside me begged to see him again. So I sat in the middle pews and purposefully put people in my way and eased into it. Every now and then I'd get a peek and something would just erupt inside me. Eventually I stood beside him and before they closed the casket for the last time I laid my head down on his chest and hugged him one last time. I had never touched a dead body before, the cold and emptiness were definitely unsettling but something within me found great comfort. 

A couple weeks later my sister and I got tattoos in his memory. We had the artist draw some  up that were comprised of a couple of his. And that seemed to help. I had my first and only dream with him in it the second night I had it and it felt like my sorrow had leveled out. But this past week or two it has been creeping back in  and I feel like I'm back on the downward slope. This pain is unlike anything I have ever dealt with. When I lose people it's upsetting, and I mourn; but then I move on. With Kyle I'm starting to believe this is impossible. The best way I know how to describe it is the cliche a "heavy heart". Like there is this weight that is constantly trying to bring me down. When I'm happy I still feel it lingering around and when I'm down I sometimes feel like its going to crush me. It's like something in the very core or soul of me has been shook up and changed and now I have to get used to the adjustments. And as of right now I think I'm okay with that. I'm prepared to carry it and him with me for the rest of my life if I have too. But maybe one day a ways down the road I'll be okay with letting it all go. I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Have any of you lost siblings? Has it gotten any easier for you?