One day at a time

I spent Friday and Saturday thinking about what I’m going to do for the next week, month, year.  How am I going to get through this.  How I am going to preserve the memory of my brother for years to come.  How am I going to make sure that his son will know the man that his father is.  And I think that is what had kept me in a haze the last few days.

Yesterday I woke up and instead of the repeated thoughts that I had listed out above, I thought to myself, how I am going to get through today.  I didn’t think about what Christmas is going to be like.  I didn’t think about what we’re going to do on his birthday.  I thought about what I was going to do today…whether it involved something with Ryan or not.  As it turned out, yesterday did not involve Ryan.  I feel guilty about that.  It’s not that I didn’t think about him, but I forced myself to think about the things that I needed to accomplish on that day.  Yard work, Costco run, being a father.

The first two days, I feel like I wasn’t much of a father or husband.  I feel like I blocked everyone out.  Maybe that’s not the case, but something hit me on Sunday and I just needed to spend time with my family.  I played with my daughter.  I tried to help out my wife a bit more.  I got some work done outside.  Sunday was a good day.  And I feel guilty about that.

One of the hardest realizations in all of this is the progress of moving on.  It scares me to think that I need to allow myself to not feel the sadness that I feel now.  Am I a horrible person for thinking this way?  I feel like I need to be in pain because of this, that I need to focus on his absence instead of the wonderful memories that I have of him.  I know this is not true.  The truth hurts sometimes, and this time the truth is that I need to allow myself to heal.  And part of the healing is to be able to let go of the pain.

Time is the greatest of all healing.  The hurt, the pain, the sorrow will all pass.  The sadness of his absence will be replaced with the positive memories of Ryan that I have.  I will never cease to miss him, but my memories of him and I are what will get me through.  Yesterday was good.  Today will be good.  Tomorrow will be better.  Some days will include things about Ryan; thoughts, actions, memories.  Some days will not.  And the hardest truth is allowing myself to know…..that is okay.

Loss

A shower.  Something that happens every day.  To clean off the grime.  To clean off the day.  I’ve also discovered that it makes an excellent place to cry.  And you can blame the redness in your eyes on the shampoo.

As I sit here drinking a glass of Jameson Special Reserve and looking at pictures of my brother, I keep trying to get some thoughts into my head.  It’s been better today, but for the first 36 hours my head was just cloudy and I couldn’t keep or generate a thought.  This is going to be about as random as it can get.

Sometimes I find free writing helps clear my head.  This is going to be about as random as it can get.  I am not going to talk about how we got to today.  Ryan is genuinely a kind soul.  He may have confused people with the way he dressed or the things he did, but when it came to his family and friends he was there and helping out in whatever way he could.

He had such a personality and I really tried to feed off of that.  I was always more of a shy person, but when Ryan was around he made it easy to relax and just have fun.  When we were younger, we used to always watch Ernest Goes to Camp.  I guess it’s a little appropriate that the only thing I can think of is the song that Ernest sings…I’m awfully glad it’s raining.

This whole things is new to me.  10 years ago, I lost a friend in a car accident.  It really affected me, but losing Ryan has been so much harder.  The numb doesn’t go away.  My head remain empty.  I know I should be thinking something.  Feeling something.  But I can get my mind to wrap around this.  It’s not until I sit and think to myself, my brother is gone.  And the tears come.

I just can’t believe it.

I will miss you Ryan.  We may not have hung out as often, but I will miss the times that we had together.  The laughter that was inevitable when we were all together, often brought on by you. I will miss your presence; there was just an aura around him that could always cheer people up.

I will just miss you.