“Ben come here” “Ben do this” “Ben do that.” These had all been sentences coming out of my mouth daily since the time I could talk, yet when I opened my eyes this morning, I remembered that it was no longer acceptable or warranted for that to come out of my mouth.
On June, 26 2014, my brother was hit and killed by a car while riding his bike to cross country practice. I woke up and walked downstairs to police officers standing around while my step father frantically told my mom through the phone to come home as quickly as she could. She had known, mothers intuition had come into play and she had gone out looking for him. The days that followed were hard, but the days turned to weeks, turned to months, turned to years. Every day is so drawn out and lasting yet when I lay in bed at the end of the week, I can't help but wonder where my week even went.
When it comes to dealing with my grief I fail miserably. I never learned how to actually cope with it, instead, I push it down ignoring it in hopes that it will somehow go away and stop hurting. The shitty thing is, is that it does hurt; its not an unbearable pain like a broken bone, no it’s a dull ache. It's that feeling in your throat and chest when you're just about to cry, but no matter how much you cry it never goes away. I don’t deal, or even think about it really. I avoid it at all costs. Like the playground bully that makes you stay inside the library at recess to avoid. If only I could avoid seeing an ambulance while driving by taking the back roads, or put my phone down for ten seconds without feeling terrified that if I do, I will miss a phone call telling me one of my family members has been killed, but no that’s not my life. My life is seeing a big sister play on the playground with her little brother and thinking of the time when I made my brother try out a swing I made from a sled that was and hooked onto a feeble branch and laugh when he would inevitably fall. My life is watching someone say “I hate you” or “I wish you were dead” and want to scream in their face because that was the last thing I got to say to him. My life is desperately wanting children, but being so scared of having them because I never want to have to go through what my mother went through.
When I finally let someone in enough to talk and actually open up about Ben, they usually give me the look. You know the one. The one where their big eyes get wide in horror and there brain is working a million miles a minute trying to figure out what to say. It either ends up with a complete subject change or an outburst of “I'm so sorry” as though I haven’t heard it a million and four times already. But then every so often comes my favorite, “I could never handle that if it were me.” The truth is you don’t handle it. You push it deep down until you forget about it most of the time, because thinking about it hurts too much. You keep the rest of your family close and never blink too often for fear of missing out on an important life event that you might be taking for granted. You don’t “handle it” , you just breath and hope that the lump in your throat subsides enough so you can speak through your psychology presentation. So you keep busy doing whatever keeps your mind off of the hole in your life and try so hard not to think about it. The holidays come around and all you can think of is how much they would like the new video game for Christmas, but then the harsh reality of it all comes around like a tether ball and slams into your face and you remember you can’t buy it because they’re not there to receive it.
So with the holidays coming up, please, don’t not call your cousin on their birthday because you’re “not that close”. Don’t not hug your mom goodbye that one day you get into a fight and slam the door . More importantly, don’t tell your sibling you hate them because they wouldn’t clean the pool so you had to do it yet again, because I promise you, if that’s the last interaction you have with them before they die, you will never forgive yourself for it. Remember that while you have them now, you might not forever . The world doesn't stop. Not for me, not for you, not for anybody.
