Today, I performed my civic duty and voted in the New York City mayoral election. I knew I wasn’t going to wait in a long line the way I did  for the 2012 presidential election, but I was surprised when there was absolutely no wait, and I was in and out within five minutes. It’s as though no one feels the need to vote for our city or even country’s future.

Ed was like this. Even when he was of age, he never registered to vote. He didn’t understand or like politics (as if I do), and he didn’t think that his vote mattered (we used to bicker over this when I’d insist he should vote). Sometimes I get cynical and I think the same, but then this thought quickly washes away when I think about the women’s suffrage movement and how hoards of women less than a century ago fought for my right to vote. We all take for granted the privileges that we have that people before us have fought for and died over. While I think about this, it makes me sad to think that maybe Ed never thought about these things because he was so overwhelmed with his own inner demons that he couldn’t see or think about the history of people before him.

It’s okay, though. Now, my new duty as a citizen of this world is to preserve Ed’s memory and make sure he did not die in vain. Each day, I am thinking about different ways to remember my brother and prove to the world that despite the fact that he is physically not here anymore, he will never be forgotten, and I will always love him. The world will benefit from the unbridled love and affection he bestowed upon me in ways that it has yet to see.

I’m so exhausted in every possible sense of the term – physically, emotionally, mentally. I feel like everything in my body has been drained out of me in the last month and a half. I realized exactly how strained I was when I was feeling faint and weak during Bikram yoga today. I’ve never felt that way during class, even the first time. When I left, I felt like the loser who didn’t give her all during class, but I knew that if I tried to exert myself more, I might have actually blacked out.

When I am by myself or walking, I think about Ed and how I couldn’t do more for him. I think about what he could have felt during his last moments. I think about how lonely he must have felt. And when I am on the phone with my mother sometimes, which has been pretty often since this awful thing happened, I feel frustrated, angry, and even more cynical. It’s as though she is unknowingly trying to imbue me with more cynicism in my life by constantly telling me all the time that no one really cares about me other than my parents; everyone who showed up at Ed’s service didn’t really care. No one cares except your parents. Apparently if I died today, no one would truly mourn me.

That’s a really sad, miserable thing to believe – that no one really cares about you. Yes, the way a parent mourns the loss of a child is different from the way a sibling or a best friend or a spouse mourns, but that’s not to say that there is absolutely no sense of loss or caring; it’s just different.

I guess I have two battles that I am really fighting now – I’m still fighting to accept that my brother is gone and will never come back to me. But I have faith that within time, I will fully accept this, though I will obviously never, ever forget or stop loving him. The second fight is the scarier fight – the fight for optimism, to overcome all the cynicism that this experience has fed into my life, as well as the cynicism that my own mother tries to fill me with. As awful as that sounds, it is a fight that will probably continue for the rest of my life. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s something I owe to myself, the love of my life, our future children… And to Ed. We all need optimism to be happy, fulfilled beings. I need to prove to Ed that all this is possible.

Today, I remembered the disheartening Greek myth of how Persephone, the only daughter of the Greek gods Zeus and Demeter, became the goddess of the Underworld with Hades. In a nutshell, Hades falls in love with Persephone while watching her frolic across the the green fields of the earth, and so he decides to kidnap and take her back to the Underworld with him. Once he accomplishes this, Demeter, the goddess of grain and agriculture, becomes so distraught that she stops all growth on earth, which could potentially result in the end of all humankind. Zeus is troubled by this, so he commands Hermes to fetch Persephone back from the Underworld. In the Underworld, Persephone is distraught, refusing to eat anything. Hades coaxes her into eating a single pomegranate seed, which is actually a trick since once you eat something from the Underworld, you must remain there forever.

Rhea, the mother of Zeus, Demeter, and Hades, comes to a compromise with all parties: since Persephone has, in fact, eaten something in the Underworld, she would need to remain there for half the year, then spend the other half of the year on earth with Demeter. So, this is why there is spring, summer, autumn, and winter: during the spring and summer, Persephone roams the green fields of earth with her mother, and in the winter, she resides in the Underworld ruling with Hades. Her mother, not enjoying this one bit, stops the growth on the earth for those six months, resulting in the cold we experience during autumn and winter.

I thought about this in the context of Ed. It would be nice if for some parts of the week, I could stay on earth and live my usual life with my usual earthly people. Then other parts of the week, I could go visit Ed in heaven (I do not believe in an Underworld) in his world. We could talk, laugh, bicker, eat, and do everything else we used to do together when he was part of this world with me. Chris reminded me how this probably wouldn’t be as ideal as I’d imagine because it would be like reliving his death every time we parted. Maybe that is true. But what is also true is that I just want to see my brother again.

A lot of tragedies happen every day, and though it is easy to be cynical about life (and as I’ve been reminded, I am extremely cynical now), I know I have a lot to be grateful for. I’m blessed to have three best friends in three different cities who have done as much as they possibly could have done for me in the last month and a half, with their constant flowers and gifts and visits and phone calls. I have family and even former colleagues who have reached out to see how I am holding up from time to time. And I have Chris, the most amazing love and support a human being could ask for in this life. Life is made of the rich relationships that we build. Without them, everything would be meaningless and feel incomplete. I’m even grateful to Ed’s church friends, who have shared photos of my brother with me and sent me words of hope and strength. This world, though it still seems dark now, is a beautiful place. It is an incredible thing to be alive. I just wish Ed believed that.

My cousin and his wife have a marriage that I would frankly call a mistake. They are constantly fighting and disagreeing about the littlest things, and the worst part about it is that they have an innocent baby boy who is about to turn 1. His wife has shown no sympathy for the fact that I have lost my brother; in fact, she has told my cousin to “deal with it” and move on with his life. It’s always sad when you realize people’s ugly sides and how little they really care.

My cousin’s baby is barely a year old, and thankfully for now, he is blissfully ignorant of all the chaos and dysfunction that surrounds him. What worries me a lot, though, is what he will be like when he is able to understand what is going on around him at home, and how he may end up internalizing all of that. The worst thing you can possibly do for your child is put him through all the same crap that you went through as a child. As they say, we should be enabling a better life for our children, as they should do in the future for theirs. This isn’t just about money, though that is a part of it. It’s about time spent with our children – loving them and encouraging them. In my opinion, my brother never got enough of this. Repeating past mistakes of our parents and grandparents will only harm our future children.

Chris’s brother Ben has been nice enough to house us during our time visiting him in Toronto. Although he did make a good attempt at preparing clean bedsheets and towels for us, after two nights of showering in a mildew-ridden, grimy bathtub (which I later learned hadn’t been cleaned in over six months, if not longer), I couldn’t take it anymore and took it upon myself to bleach and scrub the entire tub (and even the sink as an added bonus). It took 30 minutes of scrubbing, soaking, and scrubbing again, but in the end, it was virtually good as new.

I know. I’m an anal clean freak. I cannot stand dirt or the idea that dirt is there. Believe it or not, just because you do not see conspicuous dirt does not mean a surface is clean! This reminded me of the times when Ed used to oddly tell me that he wished that one day, I’d move back to San Francisco, and we’d get an apartment together. Every time he said this, I’d burst out laughing and tell him how ridiculous the idea was. Would he want to live with me and my future boyfriend/husband? Was he insane? And did he think that I would clean up after him like I always did at our parents’ house growing up? My brother was the kind of person who was anal about visible dirt, but if it didn’t “look” dirty, it was clean to him. Plus, he hated cleaning and would put it off for as long as possible. The only exception to this was laundry, which he would do like clockwork.

I guess now, we will definitely never share an apartment. But that doesn’t mean that Bart won’t be hanging out at my future homes. He’ll always be there with us.