June 27, 2018

On the day my brother died, my brain alternated between slamming against the sides of my skull and hanging completely still, frozen at the foot of a grief I couldn’t understand. It’s been three weeks now. My parents returned from Stewart’s burial in Liberia yesterday. I’m by myself in a house in a city where I don’t know a soul. Things do not feel normal, but they do feel quiet.

I’m distraught by the amount of people who understand how it feels to lose a sibling. Granted, I’m not one of those people yet. Maybe understanding will come with time. But for now, I sit. I open and close books. I wander through downtown. I watch TV. I sit with Robby while he works, I feed my dogs. I move through this new world at the bottom of the sea.

I wrote the following piece on the day Stewart died. June 27, 2018 is the worst day of my  life, but I knew it was also among the most important. I couldn’t sleep until I chronicled it. My journals were packed away in preparation for our move to Wilmington, so I opened my laptop. No words came. I pretended like it would be a blog post. Talking to other people helps me write. Words came. Now, I’ve decided to put them where I feel they belong.

I’m still at the foot of the grief I don’t understand. But maybe sharing this will help, whether it helps me or someone else. What I wrote isn’t about my brother; it’s about the day I learned he died. I assumed, after shutting my laptop that night, I would thoroughly edit what I wrote if I ever decided to post it. A few parts of the piece don’t sit well together, and the whole thing unravels at the end. Sentences blurred as I typed, eventually becoming pure static. Other than a couple words, though, I didn’t touch it.

To the people who have been there for my family and me, be it physically or in spirit, I have no words for the difference you’ve made during a time when you felt you could make no difference. I dedicate this piece to you.

*

Two days ago, I saw a kitten on a sidewalk that had one eye. The other eye had been gouged out, and it seemed that the inside of the cat’s face had been pulled out too. A dark pink, tongue-shaped lump of flesh hung nearly and inch out of the cavern. This was on a sidewalk in Wilmington, North Carolina. My fiancé and I were there to close on a house.

We had seen the kitten a month prior when we first looked at the house. It had two green eyes and was playing near its mother. We stroked its fur, which was a nice tabby gray. It rolled on the sidewalk in the sun.

My life feels like that kitten’s face now. I’m writing because it’s all I can do.

My father told me on the phone this morning, in a shredded, high pitched voice, that my brother Stewart had been killed. He was with Jesus now. I was in the car with my dogs, about to leave the dog park. I hung up. I stepped into the parking lot. I ran in a direction. I dropped to the gravel and shrieked.

Robby left work to meet me; my friend drove me home. Her friend picked her up. My dogs played tug-of-war. I called people until I couldn’t anymore. I needed something to do.

Three years ago, when my brother Ben was hit—but not killed—by a truck, my mother called me. I was on the shoulder of a coal truck highway outside Harlan, Kentucky. I dropped to the gravel and shrieked. He was in a hospital in Lima. Things did not look good. My friend Claire accompanied me to a church, the closest place with reliable cell phone service. I laid my head on her lap. I almost threw up, but didn’t. I had an idea of how to feel, but had no clue what to do.

So I gave myself a job. My parents were already on a plane to Peru and had notified family members, but I was the only one who knew most of Ben’s friends. I would tell them.

I carefully compiled a list of Ben’s closest friends and drafted a clipped, informative message. I hit “send.” I ticked my way down a list of other people to call. I called them. I talked to Claire about what factors could make Ben die, and which ones might let him live. I coordinated possible transportation plans with friends and parents’ friends. I was, after all, in the heart of Appalachia. What if I needed to get back to Charlotte that night? My mom’s friend called and asked me not to go anywhere—my parents would rather the other four of us stay safely where we were. I debated her command. When the group of college students Claire and I were with went to a community center in the boonies, I went and danced and sang on a stage. My brother is in a coma. My brother is alive. Every move that day, while surreal, was powered by supernatural energy, conviction, even comfort. I felt alive. I, somehow, felt peace.

This time is different. I went through my list of people again. I called. Sometimes, I gagged my way through the speech. Sometimes, I delivered it in a perfectly level voice. Grief comes in waves today.

I gave myself a job. I was going to gather the tools I needed to come through the other side of this. I dug up the contact information of a woman who went to the church I grew up in. She’s in her late twenties, and her brother died fifteen years ago. I called her. She told me I wouldn’t be okay for a while, but it would get easier. That I would always have questions. That my family shouldn’t stop saying his name. When we texted several hours later, she told me that this would become the “before and after moment.”

I called my friend whose father died when she was in high school. We talked briefly, then she sent me a lengthy and wonderful message. She said, “It probably feels unreal right now, almost like a dream. The mind just isn’t capable of comprehending losing someone you love so unexpectedly. In the beginning I often found myself drifting off and thinking, ‘Wait, did this really happen?’ Or worse, forgetting that it actually did happen. To this day sometimes I still find myself doing that. It seemed weird and forced at the time, but it honestly helped me to go to a quiet place alone and physically tell myself out loud, ‘He died. My dad died. He’s gone.’” She compared individual grief processes to a maze. She said, “Just when you feel like it’ll never get better and it feels impossible to get to the next stage or ‘move on,’ there will be a moment when you look back and realize how far you’ve actually come.”

I called my pastor, who’s very close with our family. I wanted her to assure me that this was random. She did, fiercely. Okay, I said. I can live with random.

My boss whose brother died told her brother to look for Stewart in heaven. My life coach assured me there was no right or wrong way to grieve. I believed her. Robby and I went on a hike. I found a leaf on the way up that reminded me of Stewart. I held it. We hiked fast.

“If anyone tells me that everything happens for a reason,” I said, “I’m going to break their fucking nose.”

On the way down, I passed a man walking a black lab mix and playing the song “O-o-h Child” through a speaker. I felt better.

I didn’t go home to Charlotte because I couldn’t yet.

On the car ride back from the hike, I played the song again. I was okay, and then:

Someday, yeah, we’ll get it together and we’ll get it all done.

I pictured Stewart greeting me in heaven. He was in gold light. I hyperventilated.

“I’m going to see him again,” I choked. “But it’s going to be such a long fucking time until I do.”

Robby and I met his mother, niece, and nephew at a park. We went to dinner. I ordered a veggie burger and mac n’ cheese, ate some, and left. Robby and I flopped side by side and watched The Office. I laughed. Robby poured a glass of wine and asked if I wanted any. I didn’t.

At one point, my dad called with the details of Stewart’s death. The initial story was that Stewart had been on the back of a bicycle and was hit by a vehicle on accident. Stewart, who lived in Monrovia, Liberia, had actually hired a motorcyclist to take him somewhere beyond the city. This is common practice in Liberia. The motorcyclist went down a country road, where he came across a slow-moving dump truck. He passed it, and the dump truck driver was instantly outraged. He accelerated and crashed into the motorcycle on purpose. Stewart and the driver flew off, and the driver was killed on impact.

Multiple witnesses formed a mob, dragged the driver from the dump truck, and began to beat him. Police showed up, fired into the crowd, and killed either two or four more people—I can’t remember now. Stewart was rushed to the hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.

“How do you feel having that much of the detail?” someone asked.

“The same,” I said. I was just sad that other people had died.

It’s late, and I don’t want to go to sleep. I know that when I wake up, there will be a few seconds when my brother isn’t dead. I’m already exhausted from remembering.

Two days ago, when I saw the kitten with one eye, I told Robby we needed to take it to hospital. We’ll fix her up and pretend that we think she’s a stray, I said. We’ll drop her back in front of her house.

But first, we had a car to unload. We did. I went to find the kitten afterward.

“Little buddy,” I called, increasingly frantic. I couldn’t find her anywhere. We left her, fleshy eye and all.

I had a nightmare about her that night. I cried the next day.

“I just want everyone to be okay,” I said.

I think I’ll be okay one day. I really do. And I think my family will too. I just want everyone to be okay.