Happy birthday, little brother

Happy birthday…

You would have been 27 years old today. You should have woken up from your evening nap in the basement, shoved the cat off of your lap, and ambled upstairs to celebrate. We should all be sitting around the kitchen table eating a piece of Baskin Robbins ice cream cake with candles stuck haphazardly into it, and you should be blowing them out while ribbons of melted cream drip insolently down the side of the cake. You should be sitting in your chair, next to the window, ignoring the rest of us as you text furiously on your latest, greatest Smart-Phone. You should be shrugging sheepishly as you unwrap gifts, (including the Starbucks gift card I always get you )with a mumbled, barely audible, “Thanks.” You should be racing out the door to indulge in one of your smelly cigarettes before hopping into your prized yellow BMW M3 to join your fellow body-building gym rat friends.

Instead, Dad is in the basement with the television turned up loud to drown out his thoughts. He spent a really hard day outside - he’s ripped out the front porch and is tearing up the concrete to put in a new covered deck. He also smashed out the front houselights on the front of the garage today in a fit of grief. So many things outside lie shattered, in a state of repair - a perfect metaphor for our lives right now.   Mom is upstairs in bed, sleeping, perchance to dream a happier dream of days past. As for me? Well, here I sit in the kitchen on Mom’s laptop, writing you a happy birthday letter that you will never read, mentally singing you a happy birthday song that you will never hear.

Most days, I really hate you for what you’ve done.   I don’t think you could ever understand the anger and the hurt that currently ebb and flow within these four walls. I don’t think you could fathom the destruction that your absence has caused. I like to think that if you knew what the fallout of your actions would be, that you would have paused for just a moment before popping those pills. I like to imagine that you loved us enough that you would have spared us all the mess, if you had only known. But on so many occasions, I wonder if you loved us at all. What you did was not an act of love. It was not an act of redemption, of absolution, of comfort, of solace, of kindness, of gentleness, of peace. There is nothing that has destroyed us all so absolutely as your death. I can’t even understand why this happened. I tell myself that your depression was a terminal illness, that it ate away your brain, wrecking destruction in much the same way as a metastatic tumor. I’ll never understand any of this - ever. Just when I think things are under control, a small reminder of your life and death pops up demanding attention and the wound opens fresh.

The papers for your life insurance came in the mail today - apparently, you made me the sole beneficiary some unknown amount. I can’t decide whether to laugh or to scream. A part of me doesn’t even want to submit paperwork for the claim…the money would be so washed in blood and grief that its momentary sweetness would be lost. The other part of me says that this should just be a reminder to me of the boy you once were - the generous, giving soul who put others before himself, who saw a need arise and did everything in his power to fill it.

It reminds me of when we were just small children, turned loose on the prairie one summer. I don’t even remember the reason that you thought I ought to have a flower; perhaps I was sad and you wanted to brighten my day, or maybe it was just a reflection of the thoughtfulness you used to exhibit regularly. You scoured the prairie with its myriad of summer wildflower blooms before settling on what you thought to be the perfect flower. It was a huge, brilliantly purple blossom dwelling upon a tall stalk. With the abandon of childhood, you set about plucking the flower only to find that you had discovered a thistle in full bloom. Oh, how it pricked your small hands! You brought that beautiful flower to me, proud of your find; you had literally bled to find me something pretty. I think that’s my favorite memory of you, of the small, sunny boy you once were. I try and tell myself that this insurance claim and the financial easement it might eventually bring are same - a beautiful flower that you’ve bled to give me - but unlike that memory of yesterday, this gift was bought with a price too dear. I can't even find it in me to care much about the money - the only thing in my life I want at this moment is to see you again and money can't buy that.

I have so very many memories of you through the years - as the small boy who once was my best friend, as the cocky teenager with the world at his fingertips, as the withdrawn man who could still exhibit fits of kindness and love.   I wish that the last ten years had heralded happier memories to which I could cling. But I try to remember you only as the the small boy who did everything with me, who shared everything with me. I try to remember the flashlight as it glanced off your face, casting shadows on the bedcovers we huddled under, whispering our secrets and our woes. I try to remember the look on your face, the absolute joy, when you drove home for the first time in your bumblebee yellow 1995 BMW.  I try so hard to remember the good times, the ice cream cakes of birthdays past.

Another memory comes unbidden, of an elementary school playground, of harsh winter, of a little boy who had lost his gloves and stood before me with tiny frozen hands, tears streaming down his face. I put your little hands into my gloves with mine to keep them warm and tried my best to comfort you. The playground aide, a horrible woman by the name of Schumacher, found us huddled together and tried to pull us apart, informing me, “You can’t always save him, you know. He has to learn how to do things himself.” How true the words she spoke. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t help keep you safe, that all the love in the world could not save you from yourself. But at this instant, most of all I am sorry that you are not here in the kitchen with me enjoying a slice of birthday cake

Happy birthday, bud. I sure do miss you.