Six years ago, my older brother, at 19 years too young, shot himself in my family's garage. Sporadically I flash back. Two hairy legs stretched out on cold cement and his gray T-shirt wrinkling as he gasps for air. The black gun in his hand. The blanket he tucked around his head to muffle the mess and sound. My father stomping. My younger sister crying on the stairs. My mother's screams. And the rain.
I believe the sky does not let anyone cry alone. I imagine if the world ends it will sound similar to a mother's scream when she finds her baby dead.
I met loss when I was 17. He introduced me to grief, who taught me that amnesia is rooted in more than the greek word amnēstia. My mind is split in two halves: before my brother's death and after. I am aware my mind plays tricks on me. Grief visits when uninvited. Like when he turns sink water into red while I clean off paint brushes at work. He locks me in my bedroom for days with no apparent escape route.
Grief is a landlord come to collect dues. He increases the rent some months with no warning. Or the former lover, driven by stale spite, who returns every time I've almost moved on. Grief is the sweet-talking dinner guest bearing pink carnations. He clandestinely mocks happiness away from the table. Maybe grief is a shapeshifter, a cloud blocking the sun.
What if every single one of our lost ones can be found? In the wind. In the rivers. You'd say that is just my mind. On rooftops if we could help them find reasons to come down. Understand why they smell of fresh smoke. Recognize why they arrive late or stop showing up entirely. How they buy that one thing to buy another thing so they can buy that other thing. Our loved ones can play sweet music but let no one hear. They will run into arms that love conditionally for the night. They are lost to those nights and red eyes. Some must sit in hospitals hooked up to machines and medicine. And a lot of the time they might seem mad and try to swat you away. Or they might seem fine as they do everything to avert attention from their sadness. And sometimes they need your hug but do not know how to ask.
What if grief starts to act as an older brother, always there to teach me? What if he has been here all along.
Even if you don't see him going through it, ask your brother if he's okay. Ask other people's brothers, cousins, sisters, friends, parents if they're okay. They are someone's baby. And the world will miss them if they decide to go too soon. I wish I could just tell my big brother that he is the sun.
