I flew home today after a month and a half of being back in New York. I’m so used to Ed either rushing out to help me with my luggage or jumping out of his seat when I arrive that it was so deflating to see neither of those things happen today. Even while sitting in the living room, I still had the feeling he was there, and that any minute, he’d walk through the front door. His desk drawers have been completely cleared of their contents. When I opened his closet, once filled with a large collection of no-iron dress shirts, slacks, and fancy ties, it was already emptied with just rows and rows of empty hangers staring back at me. This sinking sensation came over me from my throat to my stomach when I saw this; he’s really never going to come back ever again. I’m never going to see my brother again.

I realized today that for the last several days, when I am seemingly relatively calm and quiet, my heart seems to be beating a lot faster than it maybe should be. It’s so obvious that when I am having conversations with people at work, I am cognizant of it. I’m not sure exactly why this would be the case… other than the fact that my brother is gone, my parents are miserable, and I’m preparing to enter a big stress zone pretty soon. Peace seems very far away right now.

Ed doesn’t seem to want to come back to me now. The last few nights, I have asked him in my head to come back to me because I miss him, and he hasn’t come. In fact, I wake up remembering I have dreamt, but I cannot remember what happened. This is probably his brotherly way of telling me to be strong and independent and not lean on him so much. I can’t help it. I’ve spent the last 27.5 years being used to having him around, so it’s going to take me a long time to accept this current life without him. When that will be is still uncertain and to be determined.

Since I graduated from high school in June 2004, I’ve had the same glass framed photo of my brother and me from that day in every room I’ve slept in – all four dorm rooms in college, my Elmhurst apartment, and now my apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. In the photo, we are happily posing together, just the two of us, in our San Francisco dining room, right behind some of the graduation flowers I was given. I am wearing the orchid lei that my uncle had shipped fresh from Hawaii that morning, and my brother is smiling proudly without his glasses. I always told him he looked better without glasses on. Back then, Ed was as stable as he could have been, working at Macy’s, going to Kenpo karate three times a week in the sunset. I never would have thought that less than ten years later, he’d no longer be in my life. I miss Ed. Sometimes, I really just can’t believe that he isn’t here anymore.

I’m coming home to San Francisco in 11 days. As I was thinking about it last night, without even realizing it, I wondered in my head if Ed would be coming to the airport with my parents to pick me up. And as I caught myself thinking that, I realized that it still hasn’t fully sunk in that he’s gone from this life. My Ed will never pick me up at the airport again, nor will he see me off and help me with my luggage to check in. He will never be at home, sitting at his desk, waiting for me to come back. He will never jump out of his seat again to embrace me and say how happy he is to have me back home again. Coming home will never be the same again, and a certain emptiness will always linger in my mind and my gut when I think of coming home.

In March of this year, when I last saw my brother alive (but not so well), I left San Francisco on a flight back to New York, and on that flight, I sobbed for half of it and had to go to the bathroom to prevent people from staring at me. I was so worried and scared that something like this might befall us, that I could lose my brother forever. And now that fear has become my reality. Every day, I wake up, and I realize that everything that has happened in the last six weeks has been painfully real, and my brother will never inhale or exhale again. Life hurts. The truth hurts.

According to many studies done, the average human being has anywhere from 500 to 700 different strong abilities and skills. So although when you ask most people what their strengths are, and they only name maybe three or four, they are actually being quite modest. Either that, or many of their potential skills have yet to be discovered. The saddest part about that is for those who never realize their talents and abilities, and they remain dormant the rest of their lives. They die, and they lived an entire life not being aware of their hidden gifts.

I think in many ways, that was my brother. Because he had to endure a lot of harsh treatment everywhere from a very young age both at home and at school, his curiosity for life was squashed, which resulted in him never really wanting to explore the areas outside of where he was familiar. All little children are innately born curious; they want to smell, touch, see, and taste everything and anything they can get their little hands on. But once you start reinforcing in them that they should be denied things or criticize them every time they stumble and fall, that curiosity gradually gets chipped away until there could possibly be no more.

I’m honestly terrified of having kids. I’m scared that one day, though I am conscious of all the things I abhor about the way we were raised and want to put a stop to the negative cycle, that subconsciously it will start creeping out in the form of mothering my own children. All I wanted was for my brother to be happy, and I failed. What if I end up failing with my own future kids, too?

Chris and I are spending the long holiday weekend here in Toronto, where his brother Ben currently lives and works. Like Ed and I were before, they are close despite distance and age gap, and they certainly bicker in similar ways. As I get lost in their arguing and bickering back and forth, I suddenly realize that Ed and I will never have another bickering session ever again; we will never agree or disagree or raise our voices at each other. I will never cut him off again when he’s saying something inane, and he will never respond “nothing” again, as he had done in the last few months of his life when I asked him what he was up to. It’s depressing to think about how all the things your sibling once did that annoyed you before when he was still alive can be things you actually learn you miss once they are gone.

I have always loved water – the sight of it, the sound of it, and the taste of it. Seeing the ocean and being at the beach have always been things that have calmed and made me happy. Yet oddly today, after we arrived in Toronto and walked along the waterfront here along Lake Ontario, a dark feeling came over me when I remembered that water was the last place my brother was when he left us forever.

Drowning wasn’t what ended his life; it was the blunt trauma caused by the fall. He fell a long way down before hitting the crashing waters under that bridge. And it took the coast guard about 45 minutes to get out there and take his poor, lifeless body out and declare that he was no longer alive. It’s as though when I look at water now, I can’t feel the same way about it anymore because throughout today, I just kept on thinking about my brother’s body sinking, then eventually floating to the surface, his spirit gone.

Happy birthday, Ed! Today, you turn 34, yet every time I look at you in all your photos for the last eight years, you’ve never seemed to age. And now, you are ageless to me. You will always get older and wiser, but your face will remain beautifully youthful and wrinkle-free.

Life isn’t the same without you, Ed. Each day, as I think I am moving on with my life, something triggers pain in me that reminds me that you are not awakening each morning the way I do or breathing air like the rest of us. This sounds gross, but even when I put on my retainer before bed each night, I think of you because you were always so good about wearing yours, too. I still have a hard time believing I will never speak with you again or feel your embrace. It hurts so much when I think of all the suffering you went through. I’m so sorry that I couldn’t do enough to take it all away. I feel like in many ways, I failed you.

You came to me again in another dream two nights ago, Ed. In it, I came home to San Francisco, and I saw you standing in the kitchen. I immediately ran up to you and threw my arms around you and squeezed you until you started coughing. For a few seconds, you were okay with it, and then after that in your awkward way, you tried to get rid of me by squirming, and saying, “Yvonne! What are you doing?! Let go!”

I don’t want to let go of you, Ed. I’m madly infuriated at the world for how unfair everything and everyone has been to you. I’m even angry with myself because I couldn’t help you more. I wish I could have made all the wrong things right for you. I’m so sorry. I miss you. I miss my amazing brother, the best brother I could have possibly had. You will be my inspiration to be stronger for the rest of my life. You will always be inside of me. Please know that.

Today, I spent most of the morning in bed, lying awake, crying because I still hate the fact that Ed isn’t here. I thought about how I was supposed to fly home with Chris tomorrow to see him and celebrate his 34th birthday (which is tomorrow), and how all of those plans are cancelled now. Does anyone else in our family care that tomorrow is my brother’s birthday, or are they just going about their regular everyday lives as though nothing is different? If he were still with us, would they have called him to wish him a happy birthday, or sent him a gift to show that they cared?

Chris and I are going to Jackson Heights tomorrow for Indian food to celebrate Ed’s birthday. We originally had plans to take Ed to have Indian food to celebrate, and we are still going to do this. We’re getting a little cake and will sing for him.

Ed, we’re never going to forget your birthday. We are going to celebrate it every year, light candles, and make sure that we remember you and show that you will be loved forever.

I’ve spent the last week probably being the most angry I have ever been in my life. A lot of that anger is directed at my family and how I don’t think anyone ever did enough or cared enough for my brother. I have cousins who say they hadn’t talked to or seen Ed in months (you think your life is that busy? Well, he’s dead now, so I guess you will never talk to him again); I have relatives who used to come over who would barely talk to Ed, and then lo and behold, they are crying at his funeral, probably more for themselves for being so petty and superficial rather than the fact that my brother is gone. And then there are my parents, who are criticizing everyone and accusing everyone of not caring. “So what if they came to the funeral? I didn’t ask them to come. They took the day off? It’s not like it was unpaid leave; it was paid time off for all of them.” It’s such a negative, petty, miserable, sad world at home. To be surrounded by this constantly would probably drive anyone to jump off a bridge.

I dreamt last night that Ed was in his casket in his bedroom, with the lid open, so we could see his serene face. He is fully dressed in the suit and purple tie that I pressed for his final time being clothed. My parents dumped all their clean laundry on top of him to begin folding. I started cursing them non-stop, asking them what in the world they were doing and to take all of that laundry off of my dead brother.

I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that my Ed is no longer a part of this world with us. But I have not accepted the stupidity of our family and the world around us that mistreated him.