Today is "that" day....15 years ago to be exact. I can't believe it has been that long already. Sometimes I feel like I should get a pin or something for making it this long. Like the ones AA members get because they have been sober and functioning to various capacities for so many days and/or years. The memories have become faded, I no longer can hear his voice or laugh. I use to be able to close my eyes and feel his hug. Not anymore. Then there are all the memories I never get to make with him, the life experiences we will never share. This sometimes hurts worse because those leave a person with the "what if?" questions, driving you insane if you think about them too much. Perhaps I am getting ahead of myself though, which will cause me to ramble and though rambling can be therapeutic, I would rather make sense to anyone who is listening and might need to know they are not alone.
Before "that" day, I was your average 16 year old girl. I went to school collecting a 4.25 GPA, playing sports for my high school year round, had friends -some with drama and some without, I had a boyfriend, two happily married parents and a 13 year old brother who was my best friend yet still the pain in my side like normal siblings can be. I was a "normal" confused young adult, wanting to be independent and yet no clue what was really out there. I had just finished my junior year, had my own car and pager (yes a pager!) and was wide eyed and pumped for my summer to begin!
Every year my family had gone up to Lake Tahoe for a week at the same timeshare since I can remember. This year would be no different, or so I thought. My brother and his best friend went up with my parents early and my best friend and I came up a few days later in my car. My brother had been bugging us all day to go out on the wave runners, and so, 4 something in the afternoon I gave in and off we went. Each of us had our own ride. I don't recall how long we had been out on the water but what I do remember is the last time I looked at my brother with his big goofy smile. I turned to drive the other direction and within a minute my heart felt a pain to this day I can't describe and I my breath was taken right out of my lungs. Some might call me crazy but my brother and I, though we had our days of arguing, were so close, so connected.
When I finally turned around the first thing I saw was two empty wave runners floating and a boat right beside them. As I looked closer I saw an arm flopping out over the side of this boat and a man yelling as he started to race in towards shore. I too raced back to shore yelling and full of a fear I never knew existed. I ran off my wave runner like I was going to save the day but when I got close all I saw was blood and the look on my parents faces. I went numb. People were every where, I even remember a man with a video camera. People tried to keep me away but I was determined......he laid there on the cold wet cement of the boat ramp, water gathering up around him and washing away blood back into the lake. A breathing mask had been put on his face but there was blood, lots of blood, filling it up. I kept asking myself and yelling to others "why aren't you taking him away to the hospital?". Finally they put him in the ambulance with my parents as I was left behind with my best friend, my brother's best friend and others who were asked to watch over us. I remember getting on my hands and knees on the beach praying to God "please don't let him be a vegetable, please take him if that is his fate", "don't let him suffer, open your gates and welcome him to a peaceful better place"........God must have heard me because that is exactly what he did........
My mom came back to break the news to me. The words came out of her mouth so slow: "Court, your brother is dead. I'm so sorry, he's dead". I ran. I thought running would keep the bad news, the tears, the reality I had to face away if it couldn't catch me. I didn't get very far before my legs couldn't carry me, the pain made me freeze. I went to the hospital. I was in the room alone with him. His hair was still wet from the lake, he was so still, so peaceful and yet so pale and cold. I look back at that moment and now as a parent it takes my breath away and my throat closes up trying to think about what my parents must have been feeling, having to look over your dead son's body and identify him. We were told we couldn't touch him for autopsy reasons (looking back I wish I hadn't listened but the fear to touch him and for him not to open his eyes and smile at me like it was all a prank paralyzed me)
The days after I don't remember much. The night he died my best friend and I were taken back to her parent's place back home and I was pumped full of Valium to get some sleep. Jill told me the next day I cried in my sleep most of the night. I woke up alone the next morning thinking, no believing, I had just spent the night at her house like we always did and I had just had the most vivid nightmare imaginable, but thankfully it was a night mare. I went down stairs to the kitchen where her and her boyfriend were sitting and got a glass of water. As I drank the water and they sat there in silence looking at me I realized this was no nightmare, this was my life and all the pain and sadness rushed in (might sound corny but when the stories describe a human changing form to a werewolf or perhaps the Hulk I think of that moment). It was that moment I began a new path in my life. The innocence of youth I once had died with my brother and the confused teenager I was remained confused but not just about the smaller, young adult stuff. I was confused on the over all picture of life, how was I going to function in a world, which soon after my lose, looked at me as "just" the sibling, and I saw myself as "different" and "misunderstood".
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In the beginning I looked for resources to help me cope with my lose, my thoughts and my feelings. Not much was out there. I wasn't able to find people who had been down the path I was just beginning. I went to a counselor, which helped at times, but other times not so much. My life has progressed, just like life does, and over all I am very blessed with many reasons to be happy. But 15 years have passed, more years than he was on this earth, and I still have mixed feelings like he died yesterday and I am hoping this blog is a place I can get my thoughts out and work through the moments of grief/sadness and also share happy things. Death is not something people want to talk about because it is sad and uncomfortable. The sibling of the deceased are often the "forgotten grievers" and I hope my words can help others who are feeling lost, alone, or just needing to get words off their own chest. Until next time.......
