My cousin and his wife have a marriage that I would frankly call a mistake. They are constantly fighting and disagreeing about the littlest things, and the worst part about it is that they have an innocent baby boy who is about to turn 1. His wife has shown no sympathy for the fact that I have lost my brother; in fact, she has told my cousin to “deal with it” and move on with his life. It’s always sad when you realize people’s ugly sides and how little they really care.

My cousin’s baby is barely a year old, and thankfully for now, he is blissfully ignorant of all the chaos and dysfunction that surrounds him. What worries me a lot, though, is what he will be like when he is able to understand what is going on around him at home, and how he may end up internalizing all of that. The worst thing you can possibly do for your child is put him through all the same crap that you went through as a child. As they say, we should be enabling a better life for our children, as they should do in the future for theirs. This isn’t just about money, though that is a part of it. It’s about time spent with our children – loving them and encouraging them. In my opinion, my brother never got enough of this. Repeating past mistakes of our parents and grandparents will only harm our future children.

Chris’s brother Ben has been nice enough to house us during our time visiting him in Toronto. Although he did make a good attempt at preparing clean bedsheets and towels for us, after two nights of showering in a mildew-ridden, grimy bathtub (which I later learned hadn’t been cleaned in over six months, if not longer), I couldn’t take it anymore and took it upon myself to bleach and scrub the entire tub (and even the sink as an added bonus). It took 30 minutes of scrubbing, soaking, and scrubbing again, but in the end, it was virtually good as new.

I know. I’m an anal clean freak. I cannot stand dirt or the idea that dirt is there. Believe it or not, just because you do not see conspicuous dirt does not mean a surface is clean! This reminded me of the times when Ed used to oddly tell me that he wished that one day, I’d move back to San Francisco, and we’d get an apartment together. Every time he said this, I’d burst out laughing and tell him how ridiculous the idea was. Would he want to live with me and my future boyfriend/husband? Was he insane? And did he think that I would clean up after him like I always did at our parents’ house growing up? My brother was the kind of person who was anal about visible dirt, but if it didn’t “look” dirty, it was clean to him. Plus, he hated cleaning and would put it off for as long as possible. The only exception to this was laundry, which he would do like clockwork.

I guess now, we will definitely never share an apartment. But that doesn’t mean that Bart won’t be hanging out at my future homes. He’ll always be there with us.

One of my aunts told my mom that suicide is a selfish act because when you choose to end your life, you’re thinking only of yourself and completely disregard how people who love you will cope with your death. While at first glance, that may seem to be the case, but that’s only because this outsider has no empathy regarding the depth of the pain and suffering one is experiencing when choosing that final action. Depression can be so deep that it completely prevents you from truly taking in anything that is said or done around you, and it just envelopes you to a point that nothing else can be absorbed in your mind. That’s pretty difficult for a lot of people to wrap their heads around; it’s even difficult for me to completely understand even when my own brother took his own life. None of us will fully know what that means unless we ourselves experience it.

My brother is one of the least selfish people I’ve ever known. I’m not just saying that because he’s not around anymore, either. He always thought about other people – what they thought, how they felt, what they wanted. His generosity sometimes drove me crazy because he’d want to give things to the most random people, people he barely even knew! Although his life was not long, it’s like what Rick Warren writes in The Purpose-Driven Life: God measures you not by how long your life is, but rather what you do with your life and how you choose to serve others (or not). In his short time on earth, Ed gave so much of himself to the people around him and those he cared deeply for, and that’s ultimately what makes me firmly believe that my brother is in heaven. He has a heart that would make angels cry.

I always wanted Ed to travel more. We never traveled growing up since our parents were very frugal, and the farthest we had ever gone with all four of us was southern California – the main reason was to visit Disneyland in Anaheim. I was 5, and Ed was 12.

I tried to get him to come to New York to visit me last year and said I’d pay for his airfare. He had come the year before for our cousin’s wedding, but it wasn’t that enjoyable for him since my mother and I were arguing the whole time, and he never enjoys himself as much when our parents are around. I wanted him to come with just himself, and I was planning on taking a few days off to show him around the city and convince him that New York wasn’t as dirty and disgusting as he thought it was.

I wanted us to take a trip together for a long weekend – we’d explore a city somewhere in the U.S. together, and I’d get him out of his comfort zone that is the overcast and gray depression of San Francisco.

I often envisioned Chris and I having a destination wedding on an island somewhere, and I would tell my brother not to worry about the expenses because I’d take care of everything for him. As long as he was there to experience it all with me, that would be the only thing that mattered. I wanted Ed to travel the world, and I wanted to take care of him and all his worries. Money wouldn’t matter.

He isn’t physically with us anymore, and I’m still angry about it. But he will continue to experience life through us, through our Bart Simpson. He’s coming with us on his first trip across the northern border tomorrow to visit Ben. Ed’s finally going to Canada, and I’m taking him.

I was listening to Nelson Mandela’s audio book version of his autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom, and during it, he discusses how he once thought that to have a BA meant that you could then become a true leader. I thought about this for a little bit, and recalled my brother and how he felt about education. Though he never did earn a BA, he did value education, particularly for me.

When I was in fifth grade, I expressed that my teacher was very poor in her teaching of long division. She really wasn’t a very smart person, and teaching was certainly not her forte at all, particularly in the math realm. Ed was so mad about this that he decided to take it upon himself to teach me. So a few hours a week, he’d set some time up with me to go over the fundamentals of long division, how it works, with many examples where he’d walk me through each step, and end with a few sample quizzes for me. I was terribly slow at learning it, but with his nurturing patience, I eventually grasped it. In retrospect, I realized that my brother could have become a really great teacher. He was so patient and empathetic.

I remember the summer after my sophomore year of high school, I took a psychology course at City College for fun since it was free. I’d always wanted to study psych, so I figured this would be a great opportunity. I loved that course; it’s by far one of the best classes I’ve taken in my life. However, I knew that it was an elective and would not be counted against my high school GPA, so for the first exam, I didn’t study. My professor (Robert Gurney) said that he would drop the lowest test score, so I figured I could slack off for the first exam. The night before the exam, I sat in our living room, watching TV, and Ed came over and asked how the class was going. I told him it was going well and that we had an exam the next day. He looked at me, puzzled, and then asked, why aren’t you studying? “He drops the lowest test score for the final grade,” I responded. “Yvonne, just because he drops the lowest test score doesn’t mean you don’t study!” He exclaimed. I laughed and said it wasn’t a big deal. This was Ed worrying about me as usual, hoping I would do my best and showing his big brother concern. I ended up getting a B on that test. On every test following that, I studied and got all A’s. Ed knew this, and he still thought I should have studied for that first exam. Oh, Ed.

I’m so lucky and blessed that I have so many great memories of my brother and that I was given 27.5 years with him in my life.