Love Keeps Me Sober

"Beauty rises from ashes," is what I was told time and time again. I didn't then understand how beauty would rise from the tragedy of losing my brother and only understood the encouraging words as confusion. I was told, "It's okay to be angry" to which I promptly replied , "But I'm not" to which she said "Oh, but you will be and when you do, it's okay". I was told I'd find blessings within his loss and with time I'd learn lessons, to which I vehemently denied and instead carried on to teach my brother's lessons and pleaded God to bless me and take me to my brother.

It's been two years since my brother passed away...I fight with the reality that he's gone, I'm angry still; not at him but at the loss of control. And finally, I have been blessed with varietal love; love that I never knew existed and love that never felt so good. These touches of love make me feel guilty sometimes, as do the treasures my brother has given me. His home, his friends, our extended friends, the new connections I make because of common devastation and loss...all make me angry because they've all come at the cost of losing my brother. If he were still here, the world would obviously be vastly different. I'm here still, capturing the experiences I do and examining life from a very clear set of spectacles. If only I had known what lay on the other side, if only he and I were blessed with my new found love, then I'm sure we would've basked in love together and he wouldn't have punished himself so direly. If only.

Without tragedy, loss, difficult circumstances and broken episodes, we wouldn't know glory, we wouldn't know joy and we surely wouldn't know how to value and be grateful for the extremities.
When we are broken, we are suddenly open and easily affected. We are vulnerable and desperate for reassurance that only our inner most selves can provide. But we are open, which in turn, makes us feel like anything is possible and the impossible has ceased to exist. After all, the worst has happened and we are surviving. At this point, any other pain pales in comparison.

The unspoken language of tragedy is very much like the unspoken language of parents; we "get" each other, we are the most empathetic beings, we "just know" and can truly say "I can imagine" and not feel patronized, but feel so deeply loved. Deep-seeded sadness is the language of the broken and the broken are the ones who closely connect those who are fortunately ignorant to loss.

I am blessed to have a love with my brother that goes beyond any tangible depth, a love that exists on both this earthly level and the dimension beyond. In parallel, I am blessed to have been adorned with the love of countless souls who love my brother because of how deeply I love him, who love the broken me more than they loved the pre-broken me, who have gravitated towards my devastation without question and without judgement only to support, comfort and water me with love.
Love truly does keep me sober and it's a thirst I pray I always have.

We all learn from one another and I pray that my own experiences with loss and love inspire you to love at no cost.