I think my brother read my whining yesterday, so he decided to pay me a visit last night.

In my dream, he never died. This seems to be a reoccurring premise. He’s here, a part of this world, and he acts as though nothing has happened. His death was just a figment of my imagination, and everything bad that ever happened in his life never really happened. “What are you doing here?” I ask him.

He has an insulted look on his face. “What do you mean?” he responds back. He sits there and stares at me, confused and not sure what the heck I am thinking.

“You died,” I say to him. “You left me. You jumped off that bridge.”

“What are you talking about, Yvonne?” He sounds frustrated. I don’t know what to say to him. I’m surprised, confused, hurt, relieved, incredulous, all at the same time. Did none of this ever really happen? Maybe I am the one who has lost grip of reality.

And then my alarm goes off, and I wake up. And I look up at the frame with his photos up there on the left side of my bed, and I realize that no, it was not a nightmare that he died. He really did die. That is my reality. His existence on this earth in the last few hours was my real dream.