Dear Jamie,

I have never done anything like this before and I can only imagine how much you would hate me doing this so publicly. I can hear you grunting and deep sighing with your nostrils flailing right now as I am typing, though these things are only fading memories as the months go on without you here. Your twenty-seventh birthday would have been this Saturday, and if it were not for the heroin, you would be here to eat soft baked peanut butter cookies and bacon ranch pizza to celebrate.

I just got a notification on my Timehop app that showed a tweet that I put out about getting a hundred on my speech for my communication class: the speech I gave about heroin addiction and how I concluded by telling my class all about you. You were not living at home then, but I remember was talking to mom in the car on the way home for break telling her all about my grade and the speech itself. We talked about how you were going to turn twenty-six, and how tragically that seems to be the not-so-magical number for heroin addicts, for it is when their addictions seem to get the best of them and take their lives. Looking back at it now, this memory seems like a God-awful foreshadowing scene from a cheap depressing indie film.

Mom keeps saying how she doesn't want to think about the bad stuff from the last ten years, and honestly at first that was hard for me to do. I know it's nothing that you're proud of, and I know it is nothing that you want to hear, but I can't help it if it comes up.

Currently, I'm listening to Eminem as I write this, so I should probably take this time to thank you for the love and appreciation for his music. I remember all those times you would dress me up in all of your old wrestling sweats or baggy clothing and put gold chains on me with your hat and sunglasses and we would jam out in your room or in the basement. I know mom doesn't appreciate how you corrupted a young six-year-old girl — I mean Eminem is no Disney soundtrack — but those are some of the best memories I have of you.

Speaking of Disney, do you remember that time on the surrey bike at the Polynesian when you pushed Tyler off while we were moving and he fell on a giant rock but you blamed him? Tyler was pissed, and he still is for sure, but man that memory puts a smile to my face. Those are the things that I like to remember.

But I sit here and I still get angry. I get angry that I never got the chance to tell you how I really feel and how you have made the past few years really hard for me. Your name never went a day without being uttered in the house whether you were living at home or not. The drama of it all consumed years of my life, and while mom and dad tried to shelter me from it the best they could, I still saw all the fights. I heard all the screaming. I went to bed in fear more than any sister should ever have to. And you died before I could ever get the satisfaction of telling you off.

What am I supposed to do Jamie? What am I supposed to do that the last image I have of you is your body in that bed with mom screaming on the phone with 9-1-1? What do I tell people? Never more in my life has it seemed that people are asking about my family. If someone asks me about my siblings, how should I respond? Do I say I have two brothers, or do I say one? Do I want to make a scene and break out the dramatics? And as I look to future questions, what will I tell my children? How to do I tell them about an uncle they never met and never will meet? And if so, what do I say? How much detail do I give them? There are so many questions on my lap now, and for God's sake if you had put the needle down I wouldn't have to answer them in the first place.

You will never meet the man that I will one day marry, and for as long as I can remember, you have always been concerned with this. You have always been concerned with how boys are treating me, and you always tried to be my protector, but unfortunately you are not here to be there for me any longer. I think the boys I bring home will have it a lot easier without having to stare you down, and I honestly would have liked to see it.

I would also have liked for you to one day meet my future children, and for you to introduce them to music that is way too explicit for their young ears. I would have loved for you to teach my future sons how to play the drums, and for you to play techno music in the basement for the girls to dance to just like we did when I was little. I would have loved to have you teach them how to sneak food — though you were pretty bad at hiding it — up into their rooms long after snack time. I would have even liked you coming up with stupid nicknames for them, though I probably would not have approved of any of them.

None of this has ever been fair, and perhaps that's why I get so angry, but I know it's not fair to you either. You stopped by Jamie years before your final days. Heroin will do that to a person. But as I think of it now, perhaps that is not entirely true.

I got a glimpse of the old Jamie hours before your death. I got back the Jamie who was asking about the boys in my life and you saying how they were going to have to go through you in order to date me. Lucky for you, and not-so-lucky for me, the boys are nowhere to be found, but that's probably your doing.So Jamie, while I remember all of the bad, please know that I remember all of the good. The anger is there, but that doesn't negate all of the years before that. I'll remember August 13, 2016, for the rest of my life, but I'm also going to remember March 18. So happy early birthday Jamie. We will celebrate with Ben and Jerry's, old WCW or WWE DVDs, and perhaps some Slim Shady.

Love,

Stina