I don’t remember much about that day, but I feel like I
remember everything. I don’t remember the weather, but I remember eating what
would his last American meal for a year and we ate at Chipotle and laughed
because his last American meal was Mexican food. I remember that the hospital
was on the way to the airport, so we stopped by to see her, and it was his last
time ever seeing her because she died two weeks after he left. I remember her
saying that her favorite soda was Sprite, and I told her that Sprite was my
favorite soda too, and that was the last thing I ever heard her say because the
next time I saw her she didn’t recognize me. I remember it was a cordial hello
and a casual goodbye, a “see you later” that I’ll always remember because we
didn’t know that later meant never. I remember feeling like my heart was
breaking a little more with every mile closer to the airport, because a year is
a long time to be without a brother. I played my ukulele and sang annoying
songs in an effort to lighten the mood, but it didn’t have much of an effect
because I was the only one who was sad. I remember that there was traffic, and
there was the palpable panic that always comes when a long-awaited flight
threatens to be missed. The panic subsided and I sang a few more songs until my
melancholy could be heard in my voice. I stopped singing because I didn’t want
them to know how much I would miss him. Isn’t it a pity that sometimes there is
so much you want to say but when the time comes to say it, you don’t speak
because you don’t want everyone to know how strongly you feel, how violently
you love, how much you hurt? He saw it, though, as much as I didn’t want him
to. In the midst of awkward laughter and saying that “well, I guess this is it” too
many times, I cried and I hugged him and he knew. And when we walked back to
the car, I remember that he forgot his iPod but it was too late for him to come
back and get it. And as we wondered what he would listen to while flying over
the ocean, we both cried, and I remember thinking that my dad must feel just as
much as I do because he was crying like a person cries when he just feels too
much. Then we used McDonald’s napkins to wipe our eyes and the drive back was
quiet and we didn’t stop by the hospital again and I wish that we had.
Goodbyes hurt. They don’t hurt just because a year is a long
time to be without a brother, but also because the person you are saying
goodbye to won’t be the same person you say hello to a year later. Some people
embrace change. They say that life is full of ups and downs and that “that’s
just how things are.” I’m not like some people, and I don’t embrace the downs
with the same enthusiasm that I embrace the ups, because I don’t think that the
downs are meant to be embraced. When a cousin who you loved and would have died
protecting slips away before anybody had a chance to realize it was time to say
goodbye – we aren’t meant to embrace those kinds of downs. When your brother
leaves for a year to live in Europe, of course I’ll toast to new adventures,
but I’m not going to embrace being without him. I’m going to let myself be sad
about the downs and look toward the ups, because that’s life. Life is goodbyes
leading to hellos, a perpetual state of the closing and opening of doors, of
transforming and growing into the person you are meant to be.
I was just listening to the most beautiful music and reading
the most beautiful book and I remembered the day I said goodbye to my brother
and to my cousin, and even though that was two years ago, it’s a day ingrained
in my memory. My brother’s home in Richmond and sweet, sweet Katelyn is in
heaven and things sure are different than they were 735 days ago.
Love,
Christie
(who is, obviously, feeling so ridiculously nostalgic. so sorry.)
