哥哥

It was a year ago today t hat the world fell apart.  I'm not just talking about my world.  I mean the whole world, in general.  Every piece of it stopped working the way it was supposed to.  It forgot its purpose and spun out of control.  Most of you probably didn't notice.  Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for you.  But I'm telling you that it broke that day.  It still hasn't been put back together.  Someday you'll realize it too.  And when you're telling your story, you'll think it fell apart on a different day, in a different place.  But you're wrong.  This is where it happened.

For 365 days now I've tried to be normal.  At least half of the time I put on a good show.  I look and act like your average messed up human.  But at night, I close my eyes and relive the nightmare.  I've tried everything short of doing drugs to be able to sleep when I lay down, but it's fairly elusive to this day.  The second my eyelids shut I'm transported back in time; to a time when my phone rings at 4:30 in the morning.  Nobody with good news ever calls at 4:30 in the morning, even if they're calling from America.

I hear my dad's voice on the other end and my heart jumps into my throat.  He keeps saying my name.  It's like he needs to be reassured that he's talking to me, that I'm real.  I hear my mom's voice too and breathe a premature sigh of relief.  Then he asks me if I'm alone.  That's when I know this is going to be one of those phone calls that changes your life, and not in a good way.  Panic has gone from a little seed to a full-grown monster inside of me.  He keeps asking me who is there with me and I'm practically screaming for him to just say what he needs to say.  The suspense is choking me.  Then when he speaks I feel the urge to throw the words back.  I can't accept them, I refuse.

After I got home I drifted in and out of awareness.  I was numb.  I was surrounded by family and overwhelmed by people who all wanted to tell me that everything was going to be okay.  Those people and their love mean a lot now, but at the time it was like putting a band-aid on a cancer patient.  I couldn't feel the effects; I couldn't feel anything except agony.  I was dealing with the shock of being back in the U.S., and being around my family again, and the enormous, gaping hole in my heart all at once.

My thoughts whirled in and out so fast I couldn't grab onto one before the next flurried in my vision.  I lost control of my feelings completely.  Things seemed to be the opposite of what they should be.  I'd be crying in the middle of the grocery store and laughing when someone told me a story about my brother.  I felt like whatever my reaction was it was the wrong one.  A lot of the time I convinced myself that it wasn't real.  The world really didn't work this way.  It was all a mistake.

That's when the questions came.  Why now?  Eleven more days and I would have gotten to see him and tell him that I love him.  I even had a countdown on facebook until I got to see my sister again, and he had written on it, "What about me?"  I changed it so that it counted down the days until I saw him too, but I found out later I changed it two hours after he died.  He never saw it.  I told myself he must have thought I didn't love him as much as I loved her.  Logic has little to do with grief.  No matter how ridiculous the accusations are we still point the finger at ourselves.  I counted the number of times I'd talked to him over the last year.  It was pitifully small.  I managed to make myself feel guilty for everything I'd ever said or done to him.

Maybe that's partly why now I feel like sharing what losing him has meant to me.  Maybe I hope he'll read this and know how much he means to me, because I never told him while he was alive.  I never told him just how much I love him.  We don't always know how much we love someone until they aren't there to hold the world together anymore.

In a way I was glad to escape Oklahoma and head to China again.  Friends felt like strangers.  Every relationship was different and I wasn't sure how I was supposed to act around people.  Everybody wanted to show their concern by asking me how I was doing and every time I wanted to react by screaming, "How am I supposed to be?"  It felt like such a cruel question.  I know they were trying to show their kindness, but every time someone asks how you are doing, you have to stop and analyze how you are doing.  When you're in pain, the last thing you need is to be reminded of it.

Some people hugged me and told me that they loved me.  With those people I felt safe, I felt like they each took a little of my hurt on their shoulders to help me carry it.  Some people told me that everything happens for a reason.  I tried really hard to see beyond their lack of tact to their good intentions.  I often failed.  Some friends brought me a cup of tea and said nothing at all.  I knew they'd be there when I wanted to talk.  Some people think they need to defend God and explain why Clifford died.  They try to put a positive spin on the fact that sometimes life sucks.  I try to be patient with these people but it's hard.

Since that time there have been days—months even—where I felt as lost as I did at the very beginning.  I've also had periods of relative normalcy and even joy.  Slowly life is reclaiming my affection.  For a while I didn't know if I'd ever be the Katie I used to be again.  I worried that I'd changed forever.  In part, I have.  I'm sure there are pieces of the old Katie I'll never see again, but I'm learning that the essential core is still me.  And whatever I've lost won't keep me from being happy permanently.

I often haven't been able to stop the anger inside me from seeping out, and I let it take over my ability to care about other people.  I'm sorry for all the people who have had to put up with me this year, as I try to work through my pain I tend to neglect anybody's feelings but my own.

My questions haven't been answered, and a new one finds me every day.  All the things I used to be so sure about have gone fuzzy around the edges and I don't understand the world at all anymore.  Maybe it's supposed to be that way.  Maybe things don't really make as much sense as we pretend they do.

I'll never understand why pain exists in this world.  God doesn't even try to explain it so my feeble attempts are doomed to failure.  It makes me question God.  It also makes me need him.  I cry out to him, begging him to exist, and to do something about this awful void where he ought to be.  Then I close my eyes and realize the sun will rise soon.  And when it does it reassures me that this is about something bigger than me.

I know there are a lot of people who have dealt with far more loss than I have.  I'm lucky by the world's standards.  This post isn't meant to generate sympathy or to wallow in self-pity.  I don't need affirmation about how much I'm loved, I already know that more people than I deserve love me.  I just find it therapeutic to write my thoughts out, and decided that in honor of my brother I should subject the internet to them as well.  I also don't want you to worry about me, or call a counselor on my behalf.  This is all part of the process and I'd be inclined to worry more if I didn't have this much pain, or if I wasn't overwhelmed with questions.  I don't hurt every day but this is June 20^th.  This is for him.

I love you Clifford John Marshall.

 

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."
-William Shakespeare