Life is filled with pain, filled with damaged people, filled with hurts. What does it mean if we let all of that define us? What does it mean if we don’t?
The greatest sorrow in my life happened March 9th of my seventh grade year in school. I’ll always remember the small details that shouldn’t really matter I guess, in the grand scheme of things. Having a girl’s weekend with my family and the girl I thought was my best friend. I remember the mini photo shoot us gals had that morning, just being goofy as always. I remember the pile of dishes that cluttered the kitchen that we hadn’t gotten around to yet. I remember Dad in the garage working on the car. Mom got the call in the mid morning. The scream in her voice piercing my ears, filled with pain and fear. My brother had committed suicide.
Who knew you could feel such a darkness in your life, and for so long? Who knew how cold your heart could be? I found out. Just how much it would always hurt. How empty you could feel inside. It completely shattered my life-leaving me damaged, broken, and forever changed. The pain will be never ending and all consuming. Going through the teenage years is hard enough, let alone losing your brother within the earliest beginning of it all. It has impacted my every thought for a long time. It changed the way I viewed things, especially my own life and it’s worth.
You think the way you handle something like that is normal. You think hurting yourself is normal. You think it’s a pain you can control, nobody else can inflict it on you or take it away from you. It’s brutal, it’s the only pain that can give you escape. You’ll never forget how it felt having a razor to your skin. The burn may fade from your arm, but never from the depths of your heart. Those scars, they will never go away-forever marking the surface of my skin. Forever branding me as a once broken teenager. Joke’s on the world though. It’s been eight years and as an adult I’m still just as damaged and broken over this. It pierces the heart just as badly as the moment it entered into reality.
Things will never be the same. I will never look at Dad without remembering the third time I’ve ever seen him cry in my life. I will never forget all of the stupid things we did as kids. I’ll never let you live down the seventeen stitches scar across my right hip that was all thanks to your own brilliance. I will never miss you any less than I did the second things went wrong. I will never be able to tell you all of the things I need to say. I will never be able to talk it all out with you. You’ll never grow old with us, never make fun of Mom and Dad getting old-ER with the rest of us kids. You won’t get to see us all get married, or marry yourself. I’ll never get to tell you how important you are or how much we love you. Nobody else can play your part.
Nothing will make you appreciate your life and the happiness you have the opportunity to live out than losing the people close to you. I miss you. I wish you could’ve seen me grow into a woman, and drop the young girl act that gets so old. I know you watch over me everyday, and I’m going to be grateful forever for that. It’d just be so amazing to have you here. I’d give anything to be picked on by my brother just one more time.
I’m never going to understand; I mean I get it. That pain. The kind of pain where you feel like you’re heart is already ripped out of your chest and pulsing in your grip. So what’s the point of tricking yourself into thinking it’s still a part of you? Right? I get it, because years later I went through that pain. It suffocated me, it did more than consume me, it burrowed itself deep in my soul. It’s here, always, in the back of my mind. It’s easy to joke around about, everyone has their ’emo days’ right? It’s more than that though. It’s a never-ending, never understandable ache in your soul. Maybe that’s just what happens when you go through life. Maybe everyone has their pain tucked away so deep that the smiling reflection blinds the tears. Maybe we just get good at covering it up. I get it, but I’ll never understand. I know that God has a plan for everyone, I know God had a better plan for you than I could imagine. I get it, I promise I do. I just don’t understand why it had to be you.
Tell me the pain’s over. Tell me it’s alright. Tell me it’s better.
The Luckiest 