I’m coming home to San Francisco in 11 days. As I was thinking about it last night, without even realizing it, I wondered in my head if Ed would be coming to the airport with my parents to pick me up. And as I caught myself thinking that, I realized that it still hasn’t fully sunk in that he’s gone from this life. My Ed will never pick me up at the airport again, nor will he see me off and help me with my luggage to check in. He will never be at home, sitting at his desk, waiting for me to come back. He will never jump out of his seat again to embrace me and say how happy he is to have me back home again. Coming home will never be the same again, and a certain emptiness will always linger in my mind and my gut when I think of coming home.

In March of this year, when I last saw my brother alive (but not so well), I left San Francisco on a flight back to New York, and on that flight, I sobbed for half of it and had to go to the bathroom to prevent people from staring at me. I was so worried and scared that something like this might befall us, that I could lose my brother forever. And now that fear has become my reality. Every day, I wake up, and I realize that everything that has happened in the last six weeks has been painfully real, and my brother will never inhale or exhale again. Life hurts. The truth hurts.