Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night again like I did the week that Ed left us. I woke up at around 3:15, disturbed because I had some odd dreams. In one dream, I run into Ben, a friend here in New York, and he has told me that his partner, Grant, who I went to high school with, has suddenly died. In the next dream, I am sitting in a large theater, and I am the only person sitting in the audience, right in the center. As I look up to the stage, I see what appears to be a set for a house with multiple rooms. The people who are on stage are Ed and my parents, and they are going about their usual daily routine, unaware that they have an audience (me) watching them. Although they are all busy, none of them speaks to each other at all. It is as though their existences are completely unlinked from the other and that they are unaware of the others’ presences.

Needless to say, it was weird to see my family all on a stage, doing their daily activities and not interacting with each other at all. It made me feel so alienated. That’s probably how Ed felt. He had a family with whom he lived, yet despite that, he felt little to no connection to them because of his profound depression and mental illness. He couldn’t understand them, and they couldn’t even fathom the thought of beginning to understand them. Having this dream makes me feel even more disconnected from him now.

Tonight, I had dinner with a friend I’ve had for the last two years. We haven’t seen each other since the beginning of June. I was actually supposed to have dinner with him the Wednesday of the week that Ed passed away (that was a Monday, but it was confirmed on Tuesday), but I obviously canceled and told him over text that my brother was gone. He sent me a brief text to let me know he was sorry and if there was anything he could do, to let him know.

Since then, the only communication we’ve really had is when I’ve sent out mass e-mails with him on it about Ed’s service details, a copy of the eulogy I gave, and an online album of our childhood photos together. I wasn’t really in the mood to contact anyone proactively since I have been back, and so he finally contacted me a week ago to see if I was free for dinner.

Tonight, he never asked once about my brother or what happened. Am I supposed to think he was being sensitive to the topic and was waiting for me to bring it up, or am I supposed to think he doesn’t care to know? Or, am I supposed to think that we aren’t that close, so why would he even want to know?