It doesn’t seem to matter how much times passes. Every time I open the door into my parents’ house, the part of my brain that apparently doesn’t register reality thinks that Ed is going to be sitting in his chair at his desk in our living room. That part of my mind thinks he will swivel his chair, turn around and see me, and then hurriedly get up to hug me and help me with my luggage. I thought this when I arrived home from the hotel this morning, turned the key, and opened the door to let myself in. He isn’t there, I saw, and a part of my  stomach just fell.

It’s not that I wanted him to be at home forever, living in this house with our parents and doing all his same usual things. But this is how I remember him. In an ideal world, he would have gotten a decent paying job and moved out years ago. In that world, when I’d come back from New York to visit, he actually would not be sitting in that chair when I would open the front door. Instead, he’d come home to see me, or I’d go to his apartment, or we’d all meet at a restaurant and reunite. So many options had the potential to exist for my brother. It just makes me sick to think that all those potential realities are now dead along with him.