the day your world fell apart was the day mine began. august 9th, 2007 - I know the date because I read an article about it. you know it because you need to, because your mind won't let you forget that it is the day three children became two.
I remember two things - one: the look on our mother's face. it's a difficult thing to describe, glassy eyes half filled with grief and half with fear; fear of how I would react, fear of another mourning heart to fill with comfort she didn't have, fear of letting go of my hand, in case I fell into the heat of his bones and caught myself alight. I have crafted skin from dictionary pages over the years, and yet no words can pinpoint the exact expression etched on our mother's features. it is the type of look that you can almost succeed in forgetting, until it appears again - a decade later I see it once more, and suddenly I am four years old, looking up at my mother with wide eyes as she breaks in two, her halves too heavy for a four year old and a nine year old to carry on their backs.
and two: how I reacted. I didn't cry when the words left her lips, didn't even feel tears gathering in my eyes. my stomach dropped and panic filled the space it left, body numbed with the fear of what I was supposed to do, to say, to feel. because no one teaches a child how to grieve, and no child knows enough on the subject to want to be taught. four year old girls aren't meant to know how to reply to the news of a death, and yet, 23 year old boys aren't meant to crumble to ashes inside of rental vans.
I remember my mind going empty, mouth dry and full of silence. I wanted so badly to help, to make things all better, to do the impossible; and yet, the memory ends there. in the version of the story that lives in my head, there are no stages of grief, no tears, no sudden change to my life.
i suppose that's where we differ, brother. because while i realised that things don't last forever and life doesn't always follow the rules of happiness, you mourned. and while i was far too young to understand what that meant, you were just old enough.
i'm sorry that i didn't know him as well as you did, and i'm sorry i was too young to fully understand. but i think you have pieced your world back together now, for the most part - and maybe, somewhere in that world, there is a missing space in it for me.
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this is SHIT it's literally just rambling but uh idk this has been on my mind for the last few days and yeah
i reallycant remember much from this time in my life, maybe i blocked it out or maybe its jusf because i was young but like ?? idk some of the memories i have weird me out because it's like wow!!!did that actually happen like was that actually my life ten years ago ? idk it's weird a lot has changed
i'll shut up now jdnxkd bye
