Mad At Life

Anger is one of the five stages of grief, as North American Psychologists have argued. Though my argument is that grief is not one-size-fits-all where we all follow a specific pattern of emotions. Feelings, much like my own, fluctuate. Some days I'm just okay and others I'm crying periodically and can't shake the overwhelming denial of losing my brother. I have triggers that will take me back to the traumatic day of suffocating my cries and wanting to go blind at the same moment. The sound of sirens wailing from the rescue used to soothe me; for I related that sound with Charley. Now, I hear them all day and each time I hear the boys roaring down Inglewood Avenue, I automatically think they're coming to the house to aide my brother who I knew instinctively could no longer be saved. My stomach turns and my heart palpitates. And my breathing gets short. And I'm taken back to THAT DAY. Do you know what it's like to live with flashbacks? Do you? There's no pity party here...I am being truthful and raw.
The anger I feel is towards life. I'm so mad at life for taking my brother and deciding his life was over. Why didn't life intervene and help him through his last six weeks of depression and despair? Why didn't life give Charley an out and provide him with the assurance he so unconditionally deserved? Why did life beckon him to walk down a path of loss and derailed emotion?

My brother is a very controlled individual. He is strong in his tongue and in his mind. Very collected. And one day, a bitch of an obtrusive shadow came down on him without hesitation or compassion. Selfish and guarded, it crushed his spirit and never looked back. I wish I could change that encounter and juggle the representative, who, much like a magician, misdirects and before you know it- poof! The magician is gone with illusions as its core and your disbelief thrown into its pile of tricks.

The last person I am angry with is my brother. He is not to blame because it was his illness that steered him into taking his life. This illness took complete control of his thoughts and logic, and left my Charley emotional and out-of-sorts. This is what pains me most- that my brother, stoic and brave, became another brother. A brother I would never recognize. A brother that didn't exist. A brother that didn't plan his last day. A brother, whom one of his ex-girlfriends compassionately said to me as we sat at his plot together, "Charley didn't plan this. He loved you too much. He would never leave you". It's true. My brother would never leave me. That's how I know he didn't intentionally want to take his life. He didn't want to leave. He didn't want to die. I know, as I always have, that I meant everything in his world to him...he loved me so deeply that when I was with him, I was his focus. My life, my future, my daughter, was his interest--despite anything he had on his burner at the moment. That no matter what, he loves me. Non-judgmental and uber-tenacious brother. I have just the one.