they say time heals….i say bullshit.
Time doesn’t make the death of someone you love hurt less. You don’t heal. you just learn to live with a gaping hole in your heart, and learn to live with the pain.
It’s like acquiring a disability from a sudden car accident that will change you forever.
the initial grieving is like rehab, a period of time that teaches you how to go on through the day to day for the rest of your life differently.
sure you get so used to the gaping hole in your heart you kind of have a new normal, and go on about your life. But it’s always there, you never really forget, even if you can go a day or a week forgetting your disabled now, you will see something, hear something, and be smacked in the face by how much it still hurts.
Today is the anniversary of the day my brother died 13 years ago.
It is hard to believe it has been 13 years! some days it feels like yesterday. live in his basement that I rented from him. I came home from work at 3 in the morning to be greeted by the blunt news on the driveway… “Paul’s dead” with a somber, no emotional expression on my then husband’s face.
i fell to the ground, I screamed, i refused to believe it, i demanded they take me to the hospital to see my sister in law, and see this apparent reality for myself. I’ll never forget. I wish someone had warned me what I’d see. they still had all the tubes and wires attached to him from trying to revive him ( which was futile, he was dead before he fell to the floor at a resturant.) i keep this picture out and framed where I can see it, because if that memory pops in my head, I NEED to look at this picture to get that image out of my head. I used to be angry at my first husband for how he told me, but I realize now that he was just as shocked, and that he is a “fixer” kind of person so he was trying to be strong for me, and my brother’s children, and my sister in law, and my parents.
My sister in law ( ex husband’s sister) had taken me to the hospital, then she took me home and I never slept,I changed clothes and she drove me from Toronto to Hamilton so I could tell my sister. I didn’t want her to find out over the phone. That was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.
Paul was 32, and had a heart condition that runs in the males of our family. Until his death, they didn’t consider it a pattern. officially dxed cause of death was Arrythmia.
I could tell you so many things about him. but I’d be here all day.
as a young girl, he was my hero.
as an adult he was my friend.
he was un dxed ADHD,( looking back it is obvious) and he was awesome.
he was a motorcycle racer and a greatly sought after motorcycle mechanic and go cart builder in Toronto in the racing circuit
He was a great dad, a great brother and had a great sense of humour. I wish my kids could know him.
he had his flaws. I have not put him on a pedestal because he’s dead. But we all have our flaws. The thing about him was, you could never hold his flaws against him for too long, because everything else about him was so great.
I’m wishing I had more pictures of him. whenever I look at this one i can just hear him laughing so hard. It was taken at the reception of my wedding to my first husband. He had danced and danced and partied all night. that’s why he is glowing. it was August, and it was a muggy day, so he was sweating from dancing, and they hauled him off the dance floor for candid family pictures. it was 2 am.
He had such a deep chortle. My son chortles, but it is high pitched since he is 6. Sometimes the things my son does, remind me so much of him it makes my heart ache.
There has been a hole in my heart for 13 years…today it is more noticeable. today it aches, and makes me cry.
