It’s hard to talk about sensitive topics like death and suicide even when you are around friends you would consider close. But honestly, it’s even harder to broach these topics when you already know that your friend is robotic feeling-wise and doesn’t know how to express his emotions.

I have a friend who always says that when we get together, we’ll chat about things like greater purpose in life or what it really means to travel, or how being around a diverse group of people changes the way we perceive the world for the better. Those completely sound like elitist, privileged chatter subjects, but… it’s what we touch on in e-mails where we send each other links to articles that interest us. As I am getting older, I constantly find myself questioning the “why” of everything I do. It’s not like I voluntarily toil over it; the questions just subconsciously come.

But when we do actually get together for lunch or dinner or drinks, I realize that I leave him never having learned any new, undiscovered facet of him. It’s as though we at most may have touched these topics on the surface, and I am left still waiting for what I came to hear when he has already left. It’s troubling because then I wonder, how much do I really know this person, or how much do I really know anyone? Am I ever going to see that other side of him? Or maybe even worse, how well do even my closest friends genuinely know me if I cannot express myself fully when in their presence?

I am sitting in bed reading a book tonight when I look over to my left at framed photos of my brother, and I realize that it’s been just over ten years since I graduated from high school. Two of the photos are from May 2008, when I graduated from college, and my brother is with my parents at the Boston Commons and watching ducks swim. In the last photo, we are standing together on my high school graduation day, a sunny blue sky day in front of San Francisco City Hall, in June 2004, with me in my cap and gown, and him in a full suit and tie. We are both smiling at the camera, squinting from the sunlight.

Then I look closely at the suit Ed is wearing, and I wonder if it’s the suit we buried him in. I think it’s the same one.

He was really happy that day. His little sister was graduating from high school and about to start a new life in the Boston area. He was actually going to attend my graduation this time, unlike my middle school “graduation.” And he was going to shower me with all these gifts I didn’t really deserve to show how much he loved me and how proud he was.

He got all dressed up for me, which ended up peer pressuring all three of my cousins to at least wear button up shirts and slacks instead of their regular street clothes. “You’re wearing a suit?” One of my cousins asked Ed as we were getting ready to leave for Bill Civic Auditorium, where my high school graduation was held. “Why not?” Ed said. “Yvonne’s graduating!” My cousin immediately ran back to his room, obviously changing his mind about what to wear that day.

High school graduation was one of the happiest days of my life. I remember it with great clarity and pride; it was honestly a much happier period family-wise. I actually felt close to my cousins and my uncle, and I felt like we had as cohesive of an extended family I could have asked for. My entire family came – my parents, Ed, my two aunties and uncle on my dad’s side, and my three cousins who lived in the Bay Area. Everyone took the day off to see me walk across that stage and get my diploma. My then-boyfriend came, as did a couple of friends who had graduated the year before I did. I think I had to special request 12 graduation bids for my guests. My cousin’s now wife joined us for dinner that night at Roy’s but dropped an orchid lei off for me that morning, telling me I needed to have a lei at my graduation. My uncle had a special occasion lei ordered and shipped from Hawaii for me that day.

Ed was always suffering, but that day was probably one of those days that he suffered a little less. I still can’t believe it’s been ten years since that day. I keep thinking it in my mind, but I never thought that he wouldn’t be here ten years later, and it really hurts. I have no words anymore. It’s all like broken records to me. It will never stop hurting.

I hate that feeling of looking for something constantly and not being able to find it. When I got all my travel vaccines for Brazil, I left the booklet stuck in a massive stack of paper about vaccines and international travel on the kitchen counter. Chris put it away somewhere, and now I have no idea where it is. Even though I just found out I don’t need the booklet since proof of the yellow fever vaccine is not required for re-entry into the U.S, it still bothers me that I don’t know where it is.

So as I am fumbling through different papers and documents, I come across an official copy of my brother’s death certificate at the bottom of the pile. I’d never seen a death certificate before I’d seen my brother’s. Who would have thought it would have so many details on it? It even has to have the decedent’s parents’ places of birth. I have only really looked at it three times, and each time has not ended very well.

The simplest things in my family are difficult. My aunt is in town and wanted to arrange to have dinner with her son, his wife, their baby, her friend, and me. Everyone knows that I live on the Upper East Side, and they live in Bensonhurst. They own a car and have a parking spot; I have to rely on public transit. Yet every time a meal is planned, I have always relented and traveled over an hour and a half all the way to the end of Bensonhurst so that they can walk over to a restaurant, or at most, drive less than five minutes. That means over three hours of commute time for me round-trip. Every time I have asked about picking a spot that was somewhere in between, it has been shot down. “It’s too difficult to bring a baby that far,” my cousin complains.

This time, I put my foot down and said no. If you don’t want to compromise, I’m not going to give in. My aunt was disappointed and said it wouldn’t take me that long to get there (really? She’s obviously never taken the train on this ride, which includes at least one transfer depending on the weekend schedule).

I feel like I’ve spent most of my life giving in to the stupid wishes of everyone from my family and even some of my friends. But once my brother died, I realized I had to stop being as tolerant anymore because it was chipping away at my sanity and happiness. Sometimes, you really just need to say no to be happy. It’s not always about making other people happy… because in these cases with my cousin, it’s never appreciated anyway and is immediately forgotten.

On the way to dinner with a friend tonight, I spoke with my mom on the phone. As she usually does every now and then, she asked me how each of my close friends are doing. We got to one of my friends who has been unemployed for quite some time, and then she started telling me to comfort this friend. Her voice got quieter and trembling, and she said that she never really understood how bad Ed had it until he died. Ed struggled with depression for most of his life, and my parents wouldn’t really accept it. And for the first time, she expressed regret – not just as in the days after he passed as she did repeatedly last July, but in his life. “I regret not doing more for him,” she said. “I just didn’t understand then, but I understand now.” Yet now it’s too late because he’s gone forever. Why do we have to understand things once it’s too late?

It’s already hard as an adult to realize and accept that your parents are imperfect people just like you, trying to make the most of their life for themselves and their children. It’s even harder to listen to them actually admit it to you out loud. At that moment, I missed Ed even more.