On Grief and Heartache: Part Four
Nine years down, seven to go.
I have another confession to make. I don’t know what the point of these are. I think I started because I thought it might be therapeutic. Cathartic. Cruel. Pathetic. Enlightening. I don’t know. Nine years and four exercises later and the best I’ve got is that this still sucks and will always suck.
It fucking sucks.
One.
I bought a book recently. It jumped out at me because the word “grief” always jumps out at me and it was right there in the title. It was a book about a man whose wife suddenly dies and how he and his sons deal with it. I bought this book knowing it was a fiction and started reading it knowing it was a fiction. After getting a few chapters in, I happened to turn to the back and saw that the author lives happily in London with his wife and children. His wife. And that made me so angry. I guess because he was lying. Except that’s sort of what a fiction is, isn’t it. It’s a story—something made up. But I couldn’t help feeling betrayed and even though the book was thoughtful and profound I don’t know if I’ll finish it.
Two.
I wonder a lot about what James would be doing right now—who he would be. I think he wanted to get into social services. But then again, he had just started getting interested in photography. Or he could’ve followed in our father’s footsteps and become a lawyer. Or maybe he would’ve moved to Seattle and opened up a frozen yogurt shop because everybody knows that Seattle is the best place to get frozen yogurt. I don’t fucking know. And this is when I realize how useless it is to imagine a life that can never happen. All it does is make me sad. And want some fro-yo.
Three.
Even after all these years, I still don’t know how to talk about his death. Half the people I know think that I only have one brother. Because, here’s the thing: you meet a lot of people who you know will not become your friends, or you might only ever meet them just once. And family is always one of those random “small talk” things that comes up. Fucking small talk. And if I get asked about my family or if I have siblings, what am I supposed to say? If I say I have one brother, I feel like a sack of shit. Like I’m pretending James never even existed, which is decidedly worse than dying. But if I say I have an alive brother and a dead brother, that means I’ve forced the conversation from “small talk” to something else entirely.
Four.
But at the same time, when I do talk about it, I’m incredibly matter-of-fact. Almost blasé (except, don’t worry, I’m broken on the inside, promise). I had a brother. He was fine one day and dead four days later. He got viral pneumonia. Nobody got to say goodbye to him. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me.
Five.
I think a lot about death now. What happens after we die—where we go. I have no idea but I also don’t believe in an after life. That just seems like a nice story humans made up to make themselves feel better about the fact that nothing happens and nothing is big and scary and, well, nothing. Sometimes I sleep and don’t dream and wake up and it’s eight hours later and that huge chunk of time is missing. So that’s what death will be like, except there’s no waking up after and no way to contemplate that missing chunk. It doesn’t matter that I have no idea what it will feel like to cease existing because I won’t be able to feel it. Fuck, now I really need some fro-yo.
Six.
I saw a film recently where a husband was upset because his wife’s dying wishes—to be cremated and flushed down a toilet—were not honoured. Can’t imagine why. Funerals are for the living, for the people left behind. I suppose I would honour someone’s funeral wishes but also they’re dead, so what are they going to do about it? Haunt me? Go ahead. (Casper levels of haunting only, please.) Grief rituals intrigue me. They’re designed as a celebration of that person’s life, as a way for everyone else to say goodbye, but also they need to fit into societal norms for what kind of celebration and grief is acceptable. Apparently being flushed down a toilet is not acceptable.
Seven.
I’m at a point in my life now where the people who never knew my brother outnumber the people who did. It makes him seem very small. Faded. So, here. That image up there? It is a bit of an art piece I had commissioned for my mother. It is made up of James’ entire life. You can look at it and know who he was and what he liked. James was born in 1991. He was too smart for his own good and incredibly stubborn (which is why we never got along, as I am also a stubborn asshole). He volunteered at school and was the sort of person who helped others out with their homework. He loved Harry Potter, painting those little Warhammer things, reading, and Brand New. He was a fucking cool kid. You would’ve liked him.
Eight.
James really, really, really loved Harry Potter, which is partially why I love Harry Potter as much as I do. I didn’t just cry at the grand finale of the Studio Tour because fuck, that castle is majestic. And I don’t just have a Deathly Hallows tattoo because it’s cool. I don’t even have it because James thought it was cool. I have it because of magic. See, the Deathly Hallows are made up of three objects: a stone, a wand, and a cloak. The person who possesses all three items is considered “the master of death.” If I’m the Master of Death, I could bring somebody back to life, right?
Nine.
Death and grief, like everything else, comes with milestones. (We love our milestones, don’t we.) The first holidays without, the first birthday without, the first year without. And then every year after. The without keeps growing and growing. And I’ve decided that the next milestone will be the sixteenth year. Because after that, his death will be more than his life. And that scares me.
Seven years left.
