The year anniversary looms

After a surreal day yesterday remembering that exactly this time last year, my brother came and hung out with us for Easter Sunday, I woke up this morning with an unbearable ache in my heart, unable to control my tears, thinking ‘what the fucking hell has happened?’  

Exactly a year ago, when my brother appeared at our door, I was so happy - over the moon in fact.   We ate delicious food together (he said it was the best meal he had had for a long time), we did an Easter egg hunt for my girls, we took him to our favourite woods for a walk, and most importantly for me, my brother and I talked, properly talked.  He was feeling low, but I thought that the fact he was actually opening up and talking was really encouraging.  We talked of ways to make him feel better.  I told him to keep talking to me, and that he could stay with us until he felt less bad.

This morning, I am thinking ‘this time last year he had two days left of life - he was still alive, I could have saved him - on this Monday last year he was still here - I saw him, we spoke, and he told me he was feeling brighter - he said our talk really helped.  I felt so hopeful and positive for our future.  He felt suicidal.  I should have realised he was putting on a front.  I should have stayed by his side - I should have seen through the forced smile.  If i’d known what he was about to do I would not have left his side, ever.  

I have spent the last couple of months scoffing at the idea that the year anniversary would be any different to the hell of every day since his death.  But with just a couple of days to go, I am slipping further.  I am tormented by thoughts that this time last year I could have stopped this nightmare from unfolding, from happening.  He might still be alive. 

But my brother has gone.  I can’t bring him back again.  I can’t say to him ‘come on the joke’s over, come back now, this has gone on long enough’ - which is kind of what I catch myself believing -  that I can just bring him back, that none of this is real.  But when the realisation hits, even just for a fleeting second, that I am never going to see him again, never going to hear his voice, see his face... there are no words.

Reality hits: My brother's suicide

It's been eleven months since my brother's suicide.  Today as I cooked a roast dinner, the realisation that my beautiful little brother brutally took his own life, hit me like a truck, and I fear I will never recover.

In the beginning, the situation felt utterly surreal and unreal and like something that doesn't happen to you, and so you just plough on, sort of on autopilot, acting out how you think one should behave when your brother, who you loved and adored more than anything else on earth, has hanged themselves.

You know he's not around anymore, but mostly catch yourself thinking that he will walk back into the house and say 'hi, what's all the fuss about, i'm here, you silly mare, everything is fine.'

But today, it slapped me in the face, as I cut up the potatoes to roast.  His voice in my head, saying 'you always cut the potatoes too small - big roast potatoes are nicer.'  I actually don't agree with him, but the fact that I can't argue this point with him anymore, makes me literally feel like my heart has been ripped out and stamped on, and squeezed, and then chucked over a cliff.

My brother was my best friend.  I recently stayed with an old friend who reminded me of this.  She said 'You lived with him in adulthood, you did everything together, he was your best friend, you adored each other.'  And she's right.

But the last ten years of his life had been tricky between us.  I had my first beautiful child and had post-natal depression, and meanwhile he was becoming unrecognisable.  Completely unbeknown to me, he was suffering from a severe mental illness, while I was trying to negotiate parenthood and get a handle on my PND.

My brother and I suddenly didn't understand each other and a massive ugly wedge pushed itself between us.

But just before he took his own life, he came to me, and things were different.  He was softer and less angry and he opened up to me.  I really thought i was getting my brother back - I had missed him so so much.  I was over the moon, I felt re-connected to him, and felt that we were moving forwards again.  My heart was singing.

And then a couple of days later, the police arrived at my house at 2.30am, to tell me that he had hanged himself at the most special place in the world to both me and my brother.

Now, almost a year later, the pain and realisation of my brother's death gets more and more intense, and it is utterly unbearable.  I am in utter disbelief.  I just want to hold him tightly, and tell him that small roast potatoes work much better than big ones.

Disbelief: life after my brother's suicide

My brother is pretty much always on my mind, but I have spent the last 24 hours thinking non-stop, obsessively, about his suicide, in gruesome and graphic detail. Scrutinising the hows, the whys, the what ifs, and the if onlys.

Over the last nine months the different emotions have crashed in and out, but today, right now, they have all crashed in at once; anger, guilt, hurt, sadness, confusion, and it is overwhelming. My stomach is being twisted and pulled vigorously, and I want to sob and scream and throw up. But I can’t. I am in utter disbelief, but also numb.

My mind keeps tricking me. I catch myself thinking that I’m going to see him, talk to him, hear his voice, his laugh, his cry. And tell him everything is going to be alright.

But everything is not alright. He ended his life. It’s hard to accept that this act is irreversible. Did he realise this? Did he realise that by doing this, he would never get to drive his beloved Alfa Romeo again, or play pool, or walk up his favourite mountain, or eat bacon sandwiches, watch films, sit in the sunshine, and see his family and friends?

I’ve saved the Paxo sage and onion stuffing he bought before he died, now well past its sell-by date. We devoured this very stuffing as kids, and as long as this packet remains in the cupboard, part of him is still here.

But my brother is dead. His Paxo packet is still here, but he is not.  How can this be?