I woke up this morning to a Facebook message from a cousin who usually makes zero effort to keep in touch with me. He simply said that he saw a photo on his Facebook Newfeed and linked it to me. I clicked it, and it’s a San Francisco George Washington High School yearbook staff photo from 1996-1997. I caught my breath when I read the text before looking at the photo and immediately realized that was Ed’s last year of high school and also the year that he was on the yearbook staff. He joined the staff to participate in some extracurricular activity and also in hopes that he might make a friend or two. Unfortunately, he didn’t, and he didn’t enjoy his time on the staff at all. In the group staff photo, it’s exactly as I would have imagined it: it’s a large group of students, smiling and looking at the camera, and on the left side of the photo is my brother, slightly off to the side and away from the others, looking seriously at the camera. All the names of everyone pictured is also noted in the photo description.

You think it might make me happy to see an unexpected photo of my brother, but the truth is that in this context, it does not. If anything, it made me want to cry when I saw it because it just made me remember how much he hated high school, school in general, and how alienated and alone he always felt. He always felt ignored or misunderstood or unimportant. I was too young then to realize that my brother felt that way in school, and I had no concept of loneliness or depression at that time. I only learned about it shortly after he graduated when he started revealing to me how he felt. I always look back and wish I could have understood more and helped him, but I suppose that at age 11, most things of that complexity should be out of my reach.

I missed him all day today, and not just because I saw this photo of him and was reminded of the deepness of his pain and suffering and sadness. It’s also because overall, this has been a really grueling, frustrating, and tiring week, and I just want to be done with everything and everyone from this week.