Fourteen months on

I'm fourteen months into my journey of grief. Fourteen months since the day when I felt my heart literally break and my world stop turning. Never in a million years did I expect to lose my brother when I was only 26 years old.

My journey of grief has been so tumultuous and confusing, even scary at times. I know at first, that heart break pain was cripplingly overwhelming and nothing could take the pain away. I remember being in denial that there was no way it could possibly be my big brother who had died and that there must be some kind of mistake. I remember holding myself together for my parents, my younger brother, my sister in law, their newborn baby, my beautiful children. I remember trying to function and somehow managing to get through the blur of days before his funeral by trying to have some element of control over the organisation.

I remember sitting down to write his eulogy and laughing at memories and then breaking down in heavy sobs realising there were no more memories to be made.
I pushed every one away, I didn't want hugs or sympathy, I wanted my brother. I didn't want to be asked if I was ok every time I was quiet for more than two minutes or followed if I left a room. I just wanted to be! I wanted to do what felt right.
I wasn't allowed to see his body, and that will always hurt me. I desperately wanted to hold his hand and tell him that I love him, I wanted to kiss him goodbye.
I dragged myself through the funeral and read his eulogy and escorted his coffin in and out of church. I sat and spoke to people, we laughed and cried. I looked out for my parents and my brother again.

Then life goes back to normal. I came home and went back to work, the texts and phone calls gradually stop and people forget that your world has stopped. They just carry on as normal because their world hasn't changed. I was so angry that the world could carry on and my brother was dead. I was angry at every one who asked how old he was and then replied 'it's no age' when I told them he was 29. I was fed up of people asking how he died, because that was a question I couldn't answer until we had been through his inquest.

I cried myself to sleep every night for about nine months. The smallest thing would set me off, and I just had to get on with my life. I had no choice really, what else could I do? The thought of what if I died too briefly crossed my mind to stop my pain but that would've caused more pain for my parents, my family, my children and my friends but I so desperately wanted my big brother back.
And then I opened up to a friend and explained to him how I felt, and I cried, I sobbed and I screamed, I questioned, I reasoned, I denied, I accepted. The whole time whilst sat on Dave's sofa having a hug!

After that, I found things easier. I knew I had to talk About my brother and what had happened and how I felt or I would explode. So I did. Sometimes to friends, sometimes to myself, other times I would send messages to his old Facebook account.
When I let go of some anger, and embraced my grief, I found life easier. I was more tolerant of my parents grief, my younger brothers grief. I accepted I wasn't the only one hurting. We all lost him in individual ways, he was different to us all and we all had our own grief to contend with.

On the first anniversary of his death, I was lucky and blessed to have a wonderful man involved in my life who spent the whole day with me as just looked after me. He treated my grief with such dignity and respect, and allowed me to cry and to talk and he listened and embraced it as I had.

I find it easier to talk about my grief now, some weeks I don't cry, other weeks I do. Some times I feel him close to me, sometimes I don't. My love for him has not diminished in any way, my memories have begun to fade, I can't remember what his voice sounded like, I can't remember what he smelt like, I can't remember what it sounded like when he laughed, but my love for him is stronger than ever and my job now is to protect his memory.

Paul, I miss you. With every beat of my heart and every blink of my tired eyes, it's been a long day without you my friend, but I'll tell you all about it when I see you again.