Lost without my brother

They say a little piece of your family history is ripped away when a sibling dies. My heart is breaking as my “little big” brother passed away a little over a month ago. 

If you're anything like me, you grew up with parents who were like super heroes, and siblings who were gonna rule the world with you one day. You grew up naive to the world that surrounded you. Because through a child's eyes, that's what being "big" looked like. Don't get me wrong, I knew that bad things happened, and people died. But I had created a world where my family was untouchable, where nothing would ever happen to them.

There are no words to describe the loss of a sibling. If you lose a spouse-you're a widow. If you lose your parents-you're an orphan. If you lose a sibling.....you are just a girl who lost her brother. 

I will never forget that morning. I was cooking breakfast for 11 little girls who had just had what they described as the "best night ever". I had missed a call from my dad. I hadn't noticed due to the talking and laughs happening in my dining room. It wasn't unusual to get a call from California at 530 a.m. PST because on Sundays my parents went ballooning. After the girls were fed, I sent them downstairs to get ready and I called my dad back. He answered but said he was driving, "I'll call you back in a few". About 15 minutes later the call that forever changed my life arrived. "Amber Jon is gone". Gone? Where did he go? 

I cried on and off for the rest of the day, and the days that followed. I traveled home to California 3 days after his accident. It felt so surreal walking into our home. The home my parents got for us kids. The home we all grew up in. It didn’t matter that he was a grown man and we had lives of our own now.  I’d lost my brother and it was like I was 14 years old all over again, walking through the house expecting to see him.  He wasn’t in the usual places he used to be and I was the one who felt lost without him. Gradually I let it sink in that he had passed on from this world and was now in another place. 

The hardest part of all this was not what I was going through, it was seeing what my parents were going through. I didn't just grieve as a sister and a daughter. I grieved as a parent. There is nothing that will hit you in the feels more than watching parents grieve for their child. There is nothing that will erase the memory of the moment I was walking out of that mortuary watching my mom carry my brother in an urn.

The night before I returned home to Virginia I slept in his room. I felt some calm in the storm. There is no statute of limitation on grief. There is no time limit to waking up crying. There is no special cure for those dull aches in my heart that don't seem to ever go away. I'm looking forward to the day when I find myself talking about him and not feeling uncomfortable. I'm waiting for the day when the universe sends me a sign to let me know that I'm going to be okay.

My parents thanked me for my strength and for taking on what I did while I was home. No thanks needed mom and dad. THANK YOU! Thank you for being amazing parents. Thank you for my brother (even when I was a 5 year old little brat crying that I wanted a sister). Thank you for giving us a good life and instilling in us the importance of family. Thank you for all the memories you made possible. 

I will forever hold all the memories of our time together in my heart. I can't imagine the rest of my life without Jon, but I I find comfort knowing he is now our guardian angel.