five years

for my brother, half a decade after his death

Griffin and I with Toby the cat. Unsure of year.

When my brother was a child, he claimed he was incapable of smiling for photos. In all his school pictures, he would do an awkward, flat smile. Year after year. When I was a kid, I thought this was a really funny quirk, albeit I always thought he was lying about not being able to smile. As an adult reflecting on his death, it makes me sad. My brother, claiming he was “unable” to smile, or in reality, simply just didn’t want to.

My brother died by suicide on the Fourth of July, five years ago. He was pronounced dead in the very early morning of the sixth, but the holiday is always the day I associate with his death. The day he wouldn’t eat any dinner or come out of his room.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve talked to death about my brother dying, but in reality, I don’t think I could ever talk enough about it. He was my brother.

In an article for The Times, David Lynch’s daughter was talking about a conversation she had with actress Isabella Rossellini. Rossellini was sharing with her, her own sentiments on grief.

“She told me she was on a plane once and became very emotional. The stewardess asked if she was OK. And Isabella said, ‘My father died!’ And the stewardess said, ‘I’m so sorry, when?’ And Isabella said, ‘Fifteen years ago!’ That’s how fresh the wound feels, like Dad just left. He was just in the room. I was just talking to him.”

I don’t think there will ever be a time when his death does not agonize me. It sometimes feels like he just died yesterday. It can’t possibly already be five years without him, when he is still my brother. I’m not sure if that makes any sense. To me, he is just as much my brother today, as he was 10 years ago. Time doesn’t change as much as you wish it did.

I did, however, have a realization when I was writing in my journal earlier. I was writing about my plans to go to the aquarium with my boyfriend on the Fourth of July, (after i requested the day off from work and gave no specifics to my employer) and I was writing about how we used to go to the aquarium together on every family vacation. How I remembered us touching the stingrays at the aquarium in San Diego, so many years ago now. The realization I had come to was that I was able to think of positive things about him around the anniversary of his death, instead of only feeling sadness. That gave me the idea to write something about my brother that I haven’t yet, a dedication solely to things I loved about him.

When we were kids, he would let me hide in his room if I was scared or upset. Those were the only times he ever actually let me play his video games with him. Usually, he would hand me a controller and not plug it in, but tell me I was playing.

When we were both back home during the pandemic, he would always remove bugs from my room when I asked him to. Day or night, he’d come remove it, and take it outside. That summer, I had had an infestation of beetles in my room from the AC in the window, but he ensured I didn’t have to deal with them. He had a kindness not only for animals, but for bugs as well.

He helped take care of my cat when I moved out of state for college. That cat didn’t really like anyone other than me, but my brother really grew on him during my absence. My brother was a friend to him when I could not be.

He was obsessed with Star Wars, even the movies that were really bad. And he didn’t appreciate them in an ironic way, he genuinely thought they were all good. I used to think this was insane, but now, reflecting on his life, I find it charming. I wish he was still around to enjoy more bad Star Wars media.

He was extremely reserved and quiet, but when he spoke he could make everybody in the room laugh. He spent more time listening than speaking, at least around his family. I miss having him as a calming presence in my life.

He went out of his way to learn new skills. He had been practicing guitar in the months leading up to his death, and he had become very good at sports as he grew up. We had both learned to swim very late in life, but he put a lot more effort into being good at it than I ever had. I remember on one of our trips to Canada to visit family, he wanted our aunt to teach him how to dream journal.

He has very strong opinions on a lot of things, and was honest about them. It is a trait we both share. He had never been shy in sharing his opinions of movies, tv shows, music. I was obsessed with Glee, the tv show, for many years in my tweens and early teens, and he despised it. He made sure to let me know he hated it. But, he still came to see the Glee movie with me in theaters.

It is maybe selfish to say that I loved him because he was my brother, but there’s no other way to say it. He was my brother. I was born having a brother. There is no other relationship that can replace it; nothing that is equivalent. Even though I will have to live the rest of my life without him, I’m grateful he was my brother, and that I knew him for almost the entirety of his life.