I woke up the morning after I found out that my brother had died, and went to the bedroom window staring out on a day that was bright and sunny. Across the road from the high rise I was living in at the time was a garage. Cars lined up to get petrol, people came and went from the shop, buying their paper and coffee for the day ahead. I watched the cars going up and down the road in front of the flats and wondered, why ? Don’t they know he’s dead, how can life go on ? How is this possible now ? Being in shock did not protect me from the crushing weight of the truth which was unbearable and altered all of my perceptions. The pain of my grief was such that I needed the world to know he was dead and then it might stop moving and working and that would somehow make it more bearable more quiet, more respectful. Would everyone else knowing somehow change the fact he was dead ? Maybe it was all a mistake and someone would tell me this and wake me up from the nightmare. Normal life had to stop because now there was no normal, only grief and sorrow. I replayed the last conversation we had over and over in my mind. I had told him I loved him when I said goodbye, but he knew this, it was what I always said when we finished speaking on the phone. The fact it was our last conversation made it out of the ordinary. I didn’t know that would be the last time we spoke. I hung onto those words, I love you. He knew, he knew. I needed to have that, it was a minuscule scrap of comfort but I held on to it for all it was worth. Because the truth is there was no comfort. I was in another world now that I would have to navigate very, very slowly before I could begin to emerge and actually live, rather than exist and just get through the days. The sorrow of grief is exhausting and transforming. It took away fear. It made me confront my family over how they had abused me as a child. I just didn’t care anymore about the consequences, I was no longer a slave to all the threats I had been brainwashed with. I was out beyond every day feeling and every day life and none of it seemed to matter anymore, all of it seemed absurd especially my fear of my family. I felt I was on the outside of life looking in wanting to break the glass I was looking through. Only allowing myself to be broken by the sorrow of loss would allow me to return to place where I felt I belonged again.
