I think that I’ve finally accepted that Ed isn’t with us anymore. I’ve accepted how he passed, how I will never see or touch or hug or kiss my brother ever again. I’ve accepted that he will never breathe again, that I will never be able to watch him sleep peacefully with that slightly troubled look on his face as I did this last March. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to give him another Christmas or birthday gift again.

That doesn’t mean I don’t hate it. I absolutely hate it, and I’m still angry about it. I’m mad at everyone who didn’t take his illness seriously and anyone who set him aside as someone who wasn’t “important enough” to talk to or get to know.

But then on the flip side of that, I’m also really grateful to the people who did treat him very well and did try to get to know him, people like my closest friends, my Chris, and the pastor at his church.

Ed doesn’t want me to be angry all the time. I know he just wants his “strong” little sister to be happy, so I’m going to try my best, for his sake, to not be angry at the world for him… because he wouldn’t have wanted that.

This week has been pretty miserable emotionally. I’m sure it’s a combination of a lot of things – Daylight Savings Time and the pitch black sky when I leave the office for the day, the colder temperatures, the fact that I know that Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming, and they will be the first Thanksgiving and Christmases that Ed will not be able to see. I used to think that maybe this year or the following, I’d go home for Thanksgiving or buy Ed a plane ticket to come to where I was so that we could have Thanksgiving together as family. I haven’t been home for Thanksgiving since my senior year of high school in 2003. None of those potential plans will ever have the chance of happening again.

But then I remember how miserable last Thanksgiving and Christmas were for Ed because I wasn’t home for either holiday, and none of my cousins or aunt or uncle acknowledged him or came home to see him. Actually, no one even called him or sent him a gift for Christmas except me. I was in Australia and still made sure to call him on his Christmas day.

The world isn’t a better place without Ed, but somehow, I have a feeling he is probably in a better place for himself because this world was never kind or good enough to him. Maybe once, I can appreciate someone’s selfishness to end his life, as some people would call it. But it’s sad when even your family fails you.

Chris had his first ever dream of Ed the other night. The three of us were sitting in a very bright white room, and we were planning something while laughing and joking around. Oddly in the dream, Ed appeared very muscular with very defined biceps. Ed was a pretty skinny guy (though looks are deceiving, as he was very strong); it never mattered how much he ate because he’d always pretty much stay the same size. And he ate quite a lot! After he began practicing karate, he definitely became more fit and tone, and his arms became more muscular. But from the way Chris describes it, Ed would be like the next Iron Man with his new biceps.

Maybe we met him in heaven in that dream together. I always imagined heaven would be a bright place that was mostly white. Ed’s skin would be really clear, and he’d have the super masculine body he may have always wanted. He’d have 20/20 vision and never have to wear glasses again, his teeth would remain straight and white without a need for his retainers, and most importantly, he’d constantly be smiling and laughing, as though he knew how to do nothing else.

I’ve realized that as I’ve gotten older, I actually appreciate and enjoy Halloween a lot more than I did when I was younger. Maybe part of that is because Halloween wasn’t something my parents embraced. While other kids had fancy jack-o-lanterns with their cool stencils and cheap pumpkin cutting sets, my dad was cutting up our pumpkins with a big kitchen knife (that was so dangerous… and never to be repeated ever again). And when other kids got excited about their new costumes, homemade or not, each year, I had to pick one costume at kindergarten that was supposed to last me through my schooling (no matter that at age 10, I would very likely be much bigger than I would be at age 5…). All I remember of Ed is that he wore a Garfield mask a few years in a row when my dad would take us trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.

Halloween is one of those holidays that has appeal to almost everyone because it gives you the ability to be something or someone else for a day – and express your creativity in doing so. While I will not look forward to the cavities my future kids may get from all the freaking candy they will have gathered during their trick-or-treating, I will be excited to encourage their creative side in costuming up for Halloween and designing the most stunning and elaborate jack-o-lanterns possible. Ed would have enjoyed that.

The one cousin on my dad’s side I have who I didn’t really grow up with has been reaching out to me recently in light of Ed’s passing. The funny thing about us is that even though we didn’t spend much time at all together during our childhoods, we have a lot in common. We’ve been sharing lengthy e-mail exchanges about the drama and sentiments around his father’s passing, my brother’s passing, and our generally dysfunctional wider family that we are entwined in. He also has left the Bay Area to pursue a happier, more hopeful life with his wife.

He has told me that although it may be hard and painful, sometimes cutting out the negativity, even if that means shunning some family members, is what we may need to fully heal and give ourselves a chance at happiness. When there are too many negative influences around us – those who complain and do nothing about their grievances, those who self-loathe, those who do nothing proactive to help themselves or help others, we get weighed down by them and consciously or subconsciously become like them.

I know this is necessary, but it’s always good to have someone who can remind you from time to time to make sure you are actually following through on this.

So it looks like one of the “fibrous bundles” that my gynecologist found was just a little cyst. All I have to say is – visiting the radiologist’s office is like a nightmare up until the point that the doctor walks in after her assistant does your ultrasound, and she tells you, “Hi, I’m Dr. X. You’re just fine! Just thought I’d get that out of the way now since that’s what people seem to want to know right away!”

When I was lying on the table watching Natalie take my ultrasound, I felt tiny pangs of panic and despair come over me when I saw all these different colors on the screen as she ran her device over me. I obviously have no medical training, so I’d know nothing about anything on the screen, but I do know what “red” color tends to mean, and I did see some red on my left side.

I guess I won’t be seeing Ed anytime soon in the next life. He probably doesn’t want to see me this soon, anyway. But I had the feeling that from the moment I entered the office to the second I found out I was fine that his spirit was there with me, trying to ease my worries and calm me down. He was a worrywart himself, but when he’d see me worry, he would always absolutely hate it. It’s just the kind of person he was – and who he still is, somewhere up there.

It’s been three months today.

In the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it, and although sometimes it seems as though a lot of time has passed since then, other times it feels like it was just yesterday when I was crying and screaming about it, and calling my close friends and family to let them know one by one.

When my brother was about to turn 18 and I was 11, he made his first suicide attempt by taking a large amount of pills; he thought he would go to sleep and never wake up. He survived, and the next morning, he confessed to our parents what he had done, and they immediately took him to see a psychologist and psychiatrist. He was diagnosed with clinical depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a form of anxiety disorder. During those years, he stabilized, and he admitted to me that he was actually scared that night when he attempted it, and said he didn’t want to die.

I don’t think he felt that way that afternoon at the Golden Gate Bridge. I think this time around, he really wanted his life to end. He had come to terms with it and decided that this was it; this is my end. Goodbye, World.

As awful as going through all this is, and though I wish he were still here with me today, I am grateful that I have been lucky enough to have had 16 more years with my sweet, loving, selfless brother than I could’ve had if life had worked out differently, if he had succeeded in ending his life that summer of 1997. In those 16 years, my relationship with my brother matured and deepened to the point where we were no longer fighting about petty, childish things, and instead treating each other with the love and respect that mature adult siblings should. I’m blessed to have had him for over a decade and a half the way I did. Some siblings never experience that type of love with one another their entire lives. And that’s their loss.

Today, I baked for the first time I can remember since last Christmas in Australia. For some, that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but if you know me, you will know that I love to cook and bake, and having spent nearly a year hiatus away from baking seems very unlike me. I made chocolate chip cookies with a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, and the cookies came out beautifully.

While washing the dishes after, I remembered the times when I’d come home for winter or summer breaks during college, and I’d bake different things or offer to make dinner for my family. Since I’d cook, it was expected that Ed would wash dishes. One time, the dishes had been piled up in the sink for a while (that is all relative; in my parents’ house, if the dishes are in the sink for more than 15 minutes after dinner, someone’s going to get yelled at. That someone was Ed or me, or both). I called out for Ed and told him it was time to wash the dishes. Sometimes, he’d give me some attitude and say, “Why do I have to wash the dishes?” I’d respond, “Well, I made dinner/made cookies.” He’d retort back, “No one asked you to make dinner/bake cookies.” Then we’d go back and forth bickering with each other, and in the end, he’d wash the dishes. And I would help him because I knew he hated it.

It’s bittersweet to remember these little tiffs that we’d have because now I know that I will never have a small or big fight with my brother ever again. We’ll never agree or disagree on anything, or debate over something that is completely meaningless. There’s no future left with Ed and Yvonne as brother and sister. All that is left are our photos, the gifts he has given me over the last 27 years, and my fragile memories of my big brother.

Maybe up in heaven, he has found someone else to temporarily act as his little sister, who will make him wash dishes after she has baked brownies or cookies. But I’m pretty sure she won’t love him the way I do. She also probably won’t bake as well as I do, either.

Actually, heaven shouldn’t have any dirty dishes, so maybe they are just gorging on cookies together and awaiting me to join them.

For the last several weeks, I’ve been changing up my morning workout routine to incorporate Bikram yoga every Thursday. Class begins at 6:15am, which means I need to wake up by 5:45 to get out the door at 6 to walk over to the yoga studio. Today, though, class started at 6, so I figured waking up just fifteen minutes earlier at 5:30am wouldn’t be a huge difference for me.

I was wrong. At about 2pm today, I started crashing pretty hard, and I almost wanted to pass out over my computer.

I started this morning workout routine back in April of this year. As I was trying to fight my drowsiness at work, I thought about how I never told Ed that I started this workout routine. I never told him I was determined to get in shape again. In fact, because I was so concerned about how he was doing and ways he could better his life, I realize that in the last few months before he left us, when we’d talk on the phone, I barely told him anything that I was up to. I did tell him I was looking for a new job, and that was really it.

It hurts to know that he didn’t know these things about me. Maybe he would have wanted to know, or maybe he wouldn’t. Maybe if he knew I was driven to do certain things, then maybe he would have felt more driven to live. Or maybe I am just making that up right now because I wish that could have been the case. Despite our closeness and love for one another, there will always be things that we did not know about each other that were important to us. I suppose that’s the way relationships are – you can’t always share everything. But like a quote I once read from Rainier Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, which suddenly came to me just now, “infinite distances” exist among the closest of people:

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest people, infinite distances exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole, and before an immense sky.”

A distance that feels like infinity now exists between us. But one day, when we are together again, I will learn again to love the expanse between us.

The other day, a friend and I were discussing how one should approach a friend who has recently experienced a death of someone close (gee, I wonder who we were referencing during this). My friend, who has also experienced a number of deaths last summer (it was seriously the Summer of Death for both of us), said that oftentimes, because death is not a comfortable topic, people tend to veer away from it because they are scared of offending those who grieve. So we should forgive them and not take it personally. I said that I acknowledge it’s uncomfortable; obviously no one wants to deal with or talk about it, especially those who are experiencing it. But in the best case scenario, one who truly loves and cares about you will ask you how you are doing in that respect. If the grieving person chooses not to share, fine, but at least give him a choice to share. Hesitantly, he agreed I was right.

It also reminded me of a video I recently watched about how people conduct themselves around others and the types of relationships they choose or choose not to form. Perhaps the reason that those who choose not to ask because they say they are fearful of offending are really just scared about how they themselves will react to such raw, deep, and real feelings. Oftentimes in today’s fast-paced world, we form “friendships” with others in which all we do is talk about what we are doing and when we are doing it. Feelings and vulnerable thoughts aren’t shared because that seems like too much, too frightening. Do I really want to know this person on that level? How will what I learn about this person affect me?

Maybe what we all need is to expose ourselves just a little more, and be just a little bit more vulnerable. We’d be more real human beings then, and maybe we could attain just a fraction of the genuineness Ed had (that apparently intimidated a lot of people).