My brothers Keeper

March 19, 2018.

“I am a survivor of a loved one of suicide.” It’s been six months since the passing of my loved one and today I seen that quote and my heart was so heavy i needed somewhere to let it out.

I am the middle child of my broken family, below me I have a baby sister who is not such a baby anymore but a huge gap between my brother and i. Then, there was my older brother, one year, three months, seven days apart to be exact. Growing up everyone thought we were twins, which we hated but now i guess i understand the resemblance. I’m not sure anyone will read this story or even care about this story but i’d like to think this will make a difference for someone out there.

We grew up on an Island in a very small town, for the most part we were raised in an unstable environment but to us it was normal, we thought most people grew up that way and whenever we got a tad bit of a normal, stable life it seemed to be ripped away from us. My brother got the brute of it all which is something i was sheltered from my whole life. As i got older the more i learned how much he protected me from the truth, how everyone protected me from the truth. Growing up he was a troubled child, angry, outcast. I can’t describe how he felt because i was completely oblivious to the way he was feeling. When he was in elementary school he was diagnosed with clinical depression, which i only found out after his passing.

My brother was raised by our grandparents, my sister was raised by her dad and stepmom, & me i was raised by someone completely unrelated to me but with so much love. No matter what my brother and i always had this crazy bond, we fought like CRAZY, and when everyone told us one day we’d be so happy and feel so lucky to have each other we obviously didn’t believe them. But till this day i can say he was the best friend i ever had.

When he was about 11, he witnessed something horrific. He found our mother close to death, she had taken numerous prescription pills to end her life and if he had not found her she wouldn’t be with us today. What he experienced was not something anyone should ever have to deal with.

There were many factors as to why things ended the way they did and as crazy as it sounds i always knew he was gonna leave us on his own terms and there was nothing we could do to stop it. There’s no one to blame not even him. My brother held a tough exterior but right beneath the surface he was so so sensitive.

November 2013:

It was thanksgiving night 2013, my brother rarely stayed for family parties because he preferred to do his own thing. But i was home from college and he always made the effort to see me when i came home which always meant the world to me. But of course the night didn’t end as planned, he got into a fight with our mother and there was a huge fight. The next few days i returned back to school to finish up my program. The day i got back i find out that my brother attempted to take his own life, he threatened our loved ones until they gave him pills and he left. The cops found him in his car close to death and he was admitted to the hospital.

I always knew he had problems but at this point in time my world started to crumble, being so young i couldn’t understand why he would want that. I wanted to make everything better but unfortunately there were so many reasons i didn’t know about. There were so many factors: drugs, abuse, depression. That was just the beginning of the end. Shortly after that he ended up in jail, i dropped out of school and went home for a month just to support him show him i was there. It was the hardest month of my life, but once things started looking up i went back to school to finish.

Between 2014-2017 my brother moved to numerous places to find somewhere that he could be away from it all, try to find happiness. He tried his hardest, period.

In 2016 he was gonna be moving to Texas, my siblings and i went to lunch the day before he left. That was the last time i seen him. Between 2016-2017 he had numerous run-ins with the law, numerous attempts to leave us. It was a constant state of anxiety.

On August 16, 2017 i got the worst call of my life. My brother was gone. He did it in one of the most violent ways possible &  I was devastated, it was so final. I cried for three days straight, everyone was worried about me but all i could worry about was him. Where was he? Was he happy? Was he okay? Did he regret it? How did it feel in his final moments? WHY? What drove him to do so? What’s gonna happen now?

After a few days the shock kicked in to the point where i felt completely fine. I could talk about it without choking up, i could listen to sad songs and not cry, i could look at the posts people were sharing of him and just smile. That went on for the next month & a half. We had his ashes sent home and went back and forth with the idea of a funeral. Now my family is very private, & very divided. For me i never saw a body so it wasn’t real for me. We did the planning ordered an urn, a headstone, picked the date. It was set, September 30 2017. We had a VERY private memorial at our family grave sites with a very select amount of people. Nothing was posted in the newspaper, nothing was shared via social media. It was strictly the people who truly knew him & loved him.

The day of the funeral was gorgeous it was a bright sunny morning. As soon as we got there it was the most beautiful thing i’ve ever seen, there were flowers everywhere, pictures, his Urn, and lots of people who loved him.  But that’s when the tears started, during the whole memorial i cried, very loudly, i felt every single emotion all at the same time, and it was the most overwhelming, draining day of my entire life.  But it was also so healing for me.

Now it’s been six months, and every now and then i find out more details about what went on that day. Nothing will ever change what happened, ever. I don’t know where he is now or if he’s found peace. I can only hope to see him again one day. I can honestly say that i believe deep down in my heart that even if we could have a do-over with him we wouldn’t have been able to change anything. I loved him more than i’ve ever loved anyone, it was a different kind of love and he’s always with me in my heart. I think if i had the chance i’d just ask him to think about it one more time, he didn’t see it but he was so loved, and i think that’s the problem with many people they don’t see how loved they are. I don’t think i’m anyone who should give advice on the subject and i’m definitely not justifying it. But this is my story, his story. My heart breaks every single day for him, for anyone who feels like they aren’t enough, who feels like they aren’t loved, or who feels as if that’s the only way out. The only thing i can say is it isn’t, and i hope that’s enough.

BKL, i hope you know now how loved you were. I miss you with every single part of me, you’ll never be forgotten.

All my love XX