Chris came back from his latest work trip yesterday, so I thought that maybe the bad dreams would stop since he was back. Well, this ended up not being the case because I had a stressful dream last night again.

In the dream, he and I are arguing over something completely senseless, and then out of nowhere, he starts tearing up all these pieces of paper and envelopes and starts throwing them at me. They don’t really fly the way you think they would, though, and instead, they fly all around us in slow motion, and each piece seems to have a life of its own.

My sleep has been the worst this week. The last time my sleep was this poor was the week that Ed passed away.

I woke up this morning feeling really disturbed. I tried to think back to what I dreamt about before I woke up, and I remembered I was sitting in a public area with my mom that had huge, elegant, almost Victorian looking chairs with big cushions. She’s pacing back and forth, anticipating bad news from an unknown source. In the dream, Ed has been drafted to serve in the Vietnam War (this makes no sense, but what ever seems to make sense in my dreams?), and my mom is worrying every day that something bad has happened. We’ve heard through the grapevine that my brother got shot in combat, but we had no verified news of this happening or of his current condition. Suddenly, a man in miltary dress comes out of nowhere and hands me an official looking envelope.

“Open it,” my mom says. “I think this is it.” She’s implying that this is the news of his death, confirmed in writing.

I open it, and the words just bleed in my vision. The letter notifies us as his family that he has been shot and killed in combat, and that they will be shipping his body back to San Francisco.

I started screaming and sobbing, and my mother is already sobbing. The entire room continues on as though we aren’t there screaming and crying, and we just continue crying and mourning my Ed.

It’s weird to think about Ed dying in other ways. Shortly after he died in 2013, I constantly had dreams of him dying and committing suicide in different ways. Now, it’s like he’s still getting killed, but it’s not by his own means. Other things are out to kill him now.

This week is so dreary. The weather is a mix of cold, rain, and snow. Chris isn’t here. I feel anti-social and don’t really want to talk to anyone. I feel unmotivated to do anything. That’s also probably why I’ve skipped the gym.

The gym doesn’t seem like an exciting place, nor does work. Walking around outside for fresh air doesn’t help since it is cold. Being at home isn’t even that great because it’s just me, and then I have all these things staring at me that need to get done — wedding tasks, scrapbooking, my reading list, career stuff, mentoring… the list seems unending. And today, everything just seems like an obligation rather than a want. It’s one of those type of dreary days.

I’ve been having unpleasant dreams since I came back from San Francisco. In one dream, Chris and I were arguing about something, and he said he wanted to end our marriage (it’s great when someone asks to end your marriage and you haven’t even gotten married yet). In another dream, I’m fighting with my mom about the most ridiculous subject (which is usually the case in real life), and she starts sticking her finger in my face. There’s really nothing worse than someone yelling at you and sticking their pointer finger in your face. I yell at her to get her finger out of my face and to just stop being so difficult. That’s what I’m saying when I wake up, and Chris is trying to calm me down. In the next dream, Chris lets me know he made out with someone else, but he glosses over it as though it’s no big deal.

Then this morning, I woke up and remembered I was out to dinner with my friend, her boyfriend, another friend, and Chris, and when we got to the restaurant, Chris and the friend got their own table, my friend and her boyfriend got a table, and no one wanted to sit with me. We all went to dinner but apparently were not planning on eating together at the same restaurant, which made absolutely no sense. I woke up feeling disturbed and unloved.

Visits to San Francisco always seem to mess up my subconscious for a while once I’ve returned to New York. This will probably be a constant re-occurrence until… forever.

A friend and I were chatting today about my visit home. I said it was okay… until it wasn’t at the end. He figured it wasn’t a big deal, that it was just some little tiff that happened that got me into a sour mood. I copied and pasted my blog entry regarding the sign on the gate at the house, and he was really shocked. He said he didn’t think it was a good idea and agreed it was hostile, but he also said, “Try to be good to your parents. They only know what they know.” He then shared that he hasn’t spoken to one of his two brothers who currently lives in Australia in over six years now, and as much as he’s tried to reach out to him, he won’t respond. He’s also estranged the rest of the family, as well. “We can’t control our family,” he said. “All families are dysfunctional in some way.”

It’s true. People only know what they know. They will only do what they want and what they see in their own restricted minds. It’s such a dismal thing to think, though. Are we even capable of changing ourselves and our own perceptions? How much power does it take for us to change, to prevent ourselves from becoming the qualities that we detest the most?

I don’t know what it is about going back to San Francisco and the house I grew up in, but ever since Ed passed away, for at least a few days after I come back to New York, I tend to get flashbacks of the past when Ed was still here that make me angry. Most of the flashbacks are about terrible family situations we’ve had where Ed was getting yelled at, accused of something he never did, or intense screaming arguments that have happened in that house. The latest one that happened today while I was at work was the time when I was of a middle school age, and my parents accused Ed of stealing money from their bedroom. It was a massive shouting match that ensued for what seemed like hours, and I got involved by screaming at our parents, telling them that Ed would never steal from anyone, and how dare they even attempt to accuse him of something so awful. That really didn’t help anything because that just got me yelled at, but at that moment, I rather would have had myself get yelled at then Ed. He was just so weak and defenseless. It didn’t matter what he said. He was on the verge of tears, and it always pained me when he was either crying or on the brink of it. He didn’t deserve that type of treatment. In the end, when our parents found the money that they had misplaced about a month later, no apology was ever said to Ed. Parents never need to apologize, right? That’s what our parents think. Parents are never wrong… Even when they are.

Being there just reminds me of all the injustices he faced that he never deserved. He just wanted a little bit of peace, but he rarely got it. I get so angry thinking about it sometimes that everything around me blurs, and I stop hearing what is being told to me or seeing what is in front of me. I think of how powerless I was to help him, even when I tried. I could never have been enough. And it really hurts to know that.

I hate that house. That house destroyed my brother.

When I came home last week, the first thing to greet me as I rang my parents’ doorbell was a big sign duct-taped to the gate that said, “Please do not SLAM THE IRON GATE!!!!!” (Yes, those exclamation points are real; so is the capitalization). I thought to myself, that’s a really great way to scare people away from this house, and who knows… this may even scare away the mailman! I told my parents I didn’t think this was a good idea, and they just ignored me.

I brought it up again today with them, and my mother insisted that our neighbor upstairs, who rents a room from my aunt, has guests constantly coming in and out of the house, slamming the gate, the door, and even ringing our bell without realizing they are ringing the wrong one. The sign is not for our neighbor, she says, but it’s for her inconsiderate guests and family. I want to note that our neighbor is dying of cancer, and according to her doctor, she probably only has about two months left to live. She’s so frail that she can’t even make it to the toilet. She has to have a bed pan, which unfortunately goes into the garbage…. And my dad has to clean that. It wouldn’t be anyone’s favorite thing to do. Since my aunt is away in New York, she doesn’t have to take any responsibility for this.

I thought about how hostile and just rude the sign looked. Every day when she’d come back from one of her JW meetings or the doctor’s and would be in pain, she’d see that sign. Passersby would see this sign and think, what the hell is wrong with the people who live here? What kind of problem do they have? It just didn’t seem right to me to have such hostility and passive aggression stare at someone like that who’s dying. I told them that I think the sign should come down. My mom got angry and spent the entire airport ride being defensive and childish about it. “Stop saying things to hurt me,” she complained when I brought this up. “Just STOP IT.” She claims that the sign is not for the neighbor, that it’s for her bad guests. And I have no right to say anything because I don’t live there, so I have no idea about all the “suffering” that neighbor makes her and my dad go through. She even complained about the breathing machine making “all kinds of noise all night long” upstairs. Well, without that breathing machine, our neighbor would die, I said. Why are you complaining, and do you realize what would happen without the breathing machine?! She insisted they were right to keep the sign up, and my dad flatly refused to take it down. “They have no consideration,” my dad said.

This is probably why you shouldn’t have duplex or multiplex units housing multiple families. You have to deal with stupidity and passive aggression like this that is ultimately caused by both sides either not taking responsibility or choosing to be mature and reasonable. Some people just want to instigate and cause more misery and suffering without even realizing it, and they spend their entire lives depending their poor, thoughtless choices. They claim everyone else has done wrong to them and that they are constantly the victims. And these people are people I call my family.

I remember back in March 2013, I came back to San Francisco for two weeks to spend time with my parents and Ed. I worked part of the time and also took off about four days. One day, for whatever reason, I had to stay late at the office in the financial district, and I didn’t get back to the Richmond until around 7:30pm. My mom and Ed panicked, and they insisted that they “pick me up” from the bus stop at 20th and Geary. I thought that they were both being ridiculous, but I figured I couldn’t stop them.

I remember my brother calling for updates to see where I was along the 38L line so that they’d know when to start walking down the block. When I got off the bus, they were both waiting for me at the bus stop across the street, and as soon as I approached them, Ed insisted that I shouldn’t be so trusting of taking the bus so late at night, and that there were lots of crazy people in San Francisco now. It wasn’t as safe as I remembered it, he said. “Don’t pull out your iPhone on the bus,” he warned. “You don’t know who’s going to just snatch it from you!” He also admonished me to stay away from the back of the bus and to stay closer to the front and middle as much as possible.

I thought about this tonight when I took the bus home, and after I spoke with a colleague who has lived in San Francisco for over 17 years now. He relocated here from New England, where he is originally from, and he was telling me that there’s about a murder every week in San Francisco now. “It’s unfortunately not getting safer here, Yvonne,” my colleague said to me as we walked out of the office together with his almost 2-year-old boy. “There’s more people living in this city than ever before, and the police force just isn’t keeping up with the increase. There are more crimes and murders here than as long as I can remember it.”

Having this conversation with my colleague made me wish I didn’t brush Ed off as much as I did when he was warning me about the diminishing safety of our home town. Maybe he wasn’t being as ridiculous as I thought, especially now as I walk the streets of this city and wonder why every time I come home, the homeless and druggie situation seems to be worse than the last time I came.

I think I was really cursed. How is it possible that I could really have a family where a) when my brother dies, my cousin makes it all about him, b) that same cousin constantly calls or texts about how “miserable” his life is, and then c) that very same cousin says he can actually relate to my brother for not wanting to live anymore given that neither of them have any support system?

In a perfect world, I would not even be associated with this cousin. I would no longer see him or his text messages (thankfully, I can block his texts and calls now), and I wouldn’t have to invite him to my wedding. Who wants to invite someone to their wedding when that potential invitee explicitly states that he doesn’t care about your wedding? But then there are complicated things to consider, such as making his brothers angry, who would be invited, and even worse, making his mother, who is my aunt, angry. Bridges would be burned. Families would be broken. Well, our family is already broken, so what difference does it make? We’re not trying to be something we’re not. We’re openly dysfunctional.

I’ve had moments over the last year and half when I’ve thought about my brother’s suicide and the lack of note he left. I’ve wondered if I would have felt better or worse if there had been a note. Some people say a last note gives them a greater sense of closure. I’m not sure I quite agree with that because in my brother’s case, I know myself, and I probably would have obsessed over every single word in that note and never would want to get rid of it. I knew he was clinically depressed and spiraling out of control the last three months of his life. It wasn’t a surprise to me, and I could sense it more and more every time I talked to him over the phone in those days leading up to his death.

I did a quick search on how common suicide notes are. In an NIH study done in 1992 (the last year data was collected on this that I could find, which is pretty sad), less than a quarter of those who committed suicide wrote last notes. The majority of them were young females with no history of mental illness or previous suicide attempts. My brother’s not a woman, and he also had a strong history of mental illness with one previous suicide attempt. Ed was so lost in his own pain and suffering to even consider the idea of a note.

I feel an emptiness in this house without him here. I can feel his energy, but he’s not here in the flesh. It’s always the same feeling I get right before bed because I would have always gone to bed after him, and now that he’s no longer here, I can’t expect him to be in the bed next to me sleeping as I turn out the light. I have a strong urge to see him again. It would be nice to see him just once for a few hours, just to talk to him and hear his voice and laugh again. I’d tell him about how he’s going to be missing our crazy wedding in a year and how our mother is trying to control parts of it a bit at a time, and I’d let him know that I’m trying to incorporate him as much as possible because I haven’t forgotten about him — not even a bit. I just want a piece of him, and as the days go by, I feel as though I have less and less of him. It’s as though he is slipping further away from me even though he’s already been gone out of this life almost 19 months.

I look at the big framed photo of him smiling, the same framed picture we displayed at his funeral service, at night before bed while I am back home, and I just feel so hurt. Am I really never going to see you again in this life? Ever? Can’t I just hug you again, just once?