Notes on GRIEF.

What is grief if not love unspent?

Sitting here, just trying to read for my exams but my mind is taken aback to my brother’s death and the whole situation around it. Everything happened so sudden, I had no time to process it and properly grieve. I got to school in November and in less than a month, I got a phone call from my dad, I felt helpless and hopeless, what was I going to do? I managed to pack my loads and left the next day. While in the bus back home, I could not control my tears, everyone in the bus kept trying to console me but I was inconsolable, the tears just kept pouring. Everything in between happened so quick, we laid him to rest, he looked so handsome like ever in his beautiful black suit. I kept praying for him to open his eyes and say something, after all we heard all kinds of miracles of the dead coming back to life, so why not in our situation? Even until his casket was lowered, I still believed he could wake up and respond but it was all crickets.

It’s been one year plus and it still feels like yesterday sometimes, how does one even move on from that kind of situation? Did he know he was going to die? What was on his mind in his last minutes? Was he thinking of his family and friends? Was he scared? Was he happy he’ll no longer have to deal with the excruciating pain he dealt with months prior? I just wish I knew.

I heard that people’s brains always know when they are about to pass on, and play their good memories for 2 minutes. If this is true, I wonder what his brain was replaying.

My brother created a playlist while he was at the hospital. When he passed, I found myself listening to his playlist over and over again despite it being hours, I didn’t mind, it was the closest I ever felt to him after he passed. I have never being able to listen to his playlist without bawling my eyes out, even though these songs are songs I am quite familiar with (we have same music taste), I just listen to it in a different light, and it hits harder after everything. I am currently listening to his playlist (what triggered this write-up) and I feel numb towards everything. Still feels unreal. I still have to pinch myself sometimes.

I had to go to bed every night with his sweater on, I just couldn’t bring myself to let go. I still cannot bring myself to wash the sweater till today. I’ll rather have his prints on it forever. It brings me so much comfort. I also wore his necklace everyday until it broke one faithful day, saddest day of my life but it’s fine. I’m okay.

I was looking at a picture of his tombstone earlier and it just felt weird, what do you mean my brother is stuck in 2024, and everybody else just moved on?

The whole situation changed my views on so many things and I am not the person I was before, I have changed, and now living life with reckless abandon because at the end of the day, you know what happens.

It really does not get better, does it? Maybe it does, because this is the first piece I have written about him since his death that I have not cried uncontrollably. I cannot bring myself to complete the other write-ups, they are still in my note pad. Maybe someday, I’ll go back and complete them. Just maybe.

I miss my brother so much everyday. It’s crazy. Life is crazy and unfair. Grief is weird. It’s unreal.