20.09.12

Begin of blog song: Above The Water- Art of Sleeping

      Today marks the anniversary of my brother's death. Four years ago today, my brother killed himself. A single bullet through his left temple, that exploded in his skull, didn't even try to get out. That one bullet embedded itself into his brain, becoming just as much a part of him as he wanted it to.

     I remember it so vividly when we found out the news, it was a Saturday. The most beautiful Saturday ever, especially for September, I was sitting in my kitchen with my mum, having a discussion about God, and why he let's people do what they do. I looked out the window while she was explaining to me what exactly it meant to have free will. I saw two bright yellow birds, land on our fence, and then one of them flew away, and the other was just left there, looking kind of sad. It nearly brought me to tears, I'm not sure why, but that one scene with those two birds bought more emotion to me than anything ever has.
     Anyways, after our discussion on God, my mum sent me downstairs for spaghetti sauce as it was around 4:50pm and that's what we were going to have for dinner. So, I take my 13 year old legs and skip down the stairs into the pantry room, and get the sauce. Half way up the stairs the phone rings, my mum is frantic. First happy to hear from D (my brothers live in girlfriend) then that happiness turns to confusion as she can't understand what's being said through what I imagine to be D's screams and tears. Finally, my mum gets the message, "MY SON!" pretty much that was it, on an endless loop. My mum screamed those words over and over again, screaming and crying it reached the point where her legs could no longer support her and she collapsed, just sort of caved in on herself.
     She didn't calm down, but she managed to pull it together long enough to tell me the news.
"Your brother shot himself." That was it, the only explanation. Not that I needed, or wanted one I suppose, I was shocked and had to bite my lip to stop from laughing out loud. I put down the sauce, grabbed my mums hand, and together we walked over to the apartment. My mum went down the family tree calling everyone and explaining the situation.
      I'm not sure what we were expecting to happen when we got there, but what did happen was we saw my brother's lifeless corpse being rolled into an ambulance. An uncle of mine met us at the apartment and gave us a ride to the hospital. We waited for five hours, only for them to tell us something that was pretty obvious. My brother was dead, died as soon as he pulled the trigger.
     We went home, everyone holding each other, everyone crying. And then there was me, they must have thought I was broken, but I wasn't. I'm not. I stood there, and looked at these people who didn't even care to call this kid on his birthday, who were not around for the birth of his daughter nor his son, I watched these people express so much emotions for this one dead person. And I felt nothing. Was it not clear to them that this was life? People live, and then they reproduce, and then they die, it's a fact. I didn't understand their tears, I still don't, not completely. But what I do understand is their guilt, because although no one is to be blamed for my brother's choice, we are all at fault for making him feel as if that was the only rational one to be made.

End of blog song: Be Still- The Fray