My Brother's Birthday ~~ ~~~ ~~ My Brother's Death

Today is my brother's birthday.

I'm not sure of his age, though I could figure it out by adding 9 years to mine. We're middle aged going on aged.
Everyone says, "You're NOT old!"
They are correct, but we are getting older and isn't that called aging?

Several years ago my younger brother died of suicide:
4 days after my brother's birthday,
a week before his daughter's birthday and graduation.

He broke our hearts.
But we go on.

Anger, grief, anger again. Denial, reminiscence, anger again.
This is me.
All we siblings are handling it differently...any way we can survive it.

His life means nothing, except to us.
And somehow we go on.

Every year our hearts hurt again.
But we go on.

Part of our familial history is lost forever.
But we go on.

Anniversaries, births, graduations, deaths.
We go on.

It lessens but it's there, that horrible hurt.
Somehow, by God's grace, it lessens and we go on.