It took eight months

Today marks eight months since I lost my brother. Even though he has left this world, he’s come back to visit me quite a bit in my dreams. It has progressed from dreams of him dying in different ways, his confessing he wanted to die and my trying to convince him not to end his life, his squeamishness when I’d try to hug him or grab him and running away from me, to his acceptance of my love for him through my hugs and squeezes. It sounds almost like I made all of this up – this progression – when I reflect upon it now, but I’ve been blogging a lot about him since he passed away eight months ago today, and I have a record of all my dreams of him right here.

In the beginning, I told my mom a few times that he’d come to me in dreams, and she would give me this sad look and say, “you got to see him? I never have any dreams with him. It’s not fair.” She was envious that he wouldn’t come to her. Now, eight months later, she called me and told me that she finally dreamt of him. In the dream, she went out to the living room at our house and noticed the TV on. She thought it was weird because my dad was already in bed, I was obviously in New York, and Ed was gone, so why would the TV be on? She went out there to see Ed sitting. He was dressed in what looked like new clothing, his skin tanner, and a little more meat on his body than she remembered. She immediately cried out, “Ed? Is that you? Is it really you?” And she tried walking closer to him to touch him, but he kept backing away slowly from her, just staring. He wouldn’t let her touch him.

That’s like the dreams I had shortly after he passed away. I’d always try to hug him or touch him, but he’d get squeamish and struggle out my grasp or run away from me. Then I’d start crying because of how much I missed him. My mom woke up yelling, and my dad had to calm her down. She felt miserable the rest of the day. I suppose this is part of the healing process. Maybe now, Ed is finally ready to visit her in her dreams. He couldn’t allow her to see him before now. And maybe now, she will be ready to fully accept that he isn’t one of us anymore.

It’s been eight months. I still have moments where I still can’t understand how it had to come to this. I have moments when I still go numb thinking about my brother being dead, and my mind goes blank and I can’t think of anything else. I don’t think anyone ever fully recovers from tragedies like this.

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