The night of.

The stunned, shocked, sickened feeling overpowered all of us that night.

Stories were shared but it was WAY too soon to be at that point.

The main question that was repeated over and over again was, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED?”

Today, 9 months later, the question remains, “WHAT JUST HAPPENED?”

9 months went by in a flash. We’ve almost closed to loop on the first year without him at holidays or birthdays. But the first year blues will continue year after year after year after year.

Grief doesn’t dissolve over time. Time doesn’t heal. Healing doesn’t occur. Grief is now a lifestyle. The love for my brother is immense. We all loved him so dearly and STILL do. He is missed more than words can express. Our eyes well with tears on a regular basis.

Life as we know is has completely changed. We will NEVER be the same.

The stories we tell are fond and we are at the point where we can at least laugh about him in memory, or joke that he is laughing at us.

But it wasn’t easy to laugh in the beginning.

And it wasn’t out of guilt, it was due to the fact that physically our hearts split into two. The pain was so great. The loss was SO profound. The unfair reality was setting in.

Moving on is NOT inevitable.

A NEW normal is in order; however, it doesn’t mean rainbows and butterflies. We may never see rainbows and butterflies again. And I’ve learned that that’s OK.

People who haven’t been through it will NEVER understand. NEVER. Those same people tend to be the ones to get over it first. AND expect that you will too, eventually. There’s no getting over profound loss. Period.

I remember the night of, I just cried in bed for hours. Woke up in the middle of the night and cried, then fell asleep. Cried when I woke up in the morning. I don’t remember any significant dreams about him, but I’ve had many since. You can look at all the outpouring of love and support on social media, but that feeling of void, the loneliness that settles, overshadows those who reach out whether in person, over the phone or through the internet. It’s one of the weirdest feelings I’ve ever experienced in my life. All of the attention at a time when all I wanted to do was crawl up under a blanket and sleep my life away.