If I could live in Inception, my brother would always be there. At the very least, he'd visit me long enough to answer my questions.
Why did he think he had to die? Was anything really that bad? Could somebody actually be that selfish? Does he miss us as much as we miss him? Does he mourn the precious minutes of life that float away with every one of our tears, just as we mourn him still? Did it hurt? Did he change his mind just a moment too late?
Questions for which I will never have answers.
Not in the books I read, the classes I take, or the conversations I have. It's a waste of my time, but I can't seem to stop it once the ball gets rolling. I spend some time being sad, but then I'm just angry for the time that I could have spent doing something useful. I'm angry that my thoughts are hijacked by the would-be 27 year old who is eternally 20. January 9th will always be the day I say, "my brother would have been ___ years old today" just as October 3rd will always be the day I say, "it's been __ years now". On and around those days, it's like I've gone back to the beginning. That feeling that I've been ripped to shreds? Rarely, but it still makes appearances. Fighting myself to not cry in class? Oh yes... that's there too. It makes me such a downer, and I hate that. It's not who I am.
The other 50 weeks of the year it's a completely different story. The other 50 weeks, I am completely myself. I can smile when I know that Brandon would laugh at the thing I just said. I can pause and feel joy when I put the sweatshirt on that he gave me for the last birthday I had before he died. As strange as it sounds, I can be thankful. I'm thankful that I still know what he smelled like because my little brother wears his cologne. I'm thankful to know that he loved me enough to cry when he found out I was being bullied. I'm most thankful that I have my brother's Bible, and that I received it when I needed it. That even in death, there was Brandon telling me to wake up and smell the Jesus; because no matter how strung out he was, even he knew that when he needed help he would find it in the Word. (He hid money there. Maybe it's because its the last place he would look, but I believe with everything in me that it's so much more than that.)
I miss my brother. But I guess the point is this:
The pain passes, but the beauty remains.
- Pierre Auguste Renoir
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