It’s been one year today. One year since my wonderful brother lost his battle with melanoma. One year since he passed away. One year gone, and I still haven’t found the answer that feels right when people ask me how many siblings I have; saying two feels wrong, disloyal. But saying three isn’t quite right, either. So I usually just overexplain the situation in my typical way, making what was meant to be an innocuous question into an awkward interchange.
It feels impossible that a year has already passed since he has been a living, breathing member of our world. And at the same time, it seems impossible that it hasn’t been five years, or a lifetime since last March, since Before my Cancer. For me, today doesn’t just mark the anniversary of my brother’s death, but also the beginning of other unwelcome anniversaries. Tomorrow will be the one year anniversary of when I found my lump. This is followed shortly by the anniversaries of going to my brother’s service, seeing the doctor, having biopsy after biopsy, starting chemo, and on and on. This is significant to me because last year on all of those occasions, I would think to myself, “but my brother just died.” As if I should be spared something bad because something worse already happened. And on all of those occasions, I could also say, “last year at this time, my brother was alive.” But after today, I can’t say that anymore, and that is hitting me so hard. Because the further away I get from his death, the greater the likelihood is that the memories of him become blurrier, less refined. That I’ll have to find pictures of him to really recall the crinkles around his eyes from all of his smiling, giving him this friendly, jokey look. Or I’ll have to listen to old voicemails to fully capture the quality of his loving voice in my head, wishing I also had sarcastic, smart-ass voicemails so I could have a record of how he sounded when he was teasing me. I love remembering his teasing.
I want to say it’s unfair. It’s unfair I didn’t get to connect with him about our diagnoses, and we didn’t get to help each other through the emotional parts, although I’m not sure he ever would have been open to receiving my help, just offering his. It’s unfair he didn’t get to see our sister finally get her dream job, or our brother be happier than he’s been in I’m not sure how long. It’s unfair he won’t watch me graduate (although at my current rate of progress, it’s possible nobody will be able to watch that). It’s unfair he wasn’t able to become a grandfather, because he would have been the best kind – involved, active, and loving. It’s unfair he couldn’t watch his children grow ever more gracious and interesting each day, and his former wife (and dear friend, although that word doesn’t fully capture the depth of their relationship) lovingly and patiently walk them through their grief, as well as her own (I do get that if he had been here, there wouldn’t have been the grief to walk through, but that’s not the point). It’s unfair he and my parents were robbed of more time together to connect and to love. It’s unfair they had to watch one of their children die.
There are countless ways that this feels unfair. But calling it unfair doesn’t feel quite right, either. Because is that saying that it would be more fair if somebody else’s brother, father, son, friend had died? Would it be more fair if he had lived, but with a poor quality of life? It’s not like we are all promised a long and healthy life, and his promise was broken. We aren’t. We are only given this moment, and for the most part (institutional inequalities and other injustices aside), it is up to us to make sure this moment is lived intentionally, whatever that means to each of us. My brother was good at that. He used to like to tell me that he worked hard and played hard, and he did. He also used to say that I didn’t play hard, often enough. In his honor, it feels like I should do something he would either consider working or playing hard. Something that represents truly living. But I don’t really feel like it today. Today, I feel like holing up, and just being with my memories of him.