Body in a Box

So it happened.

the saddest day of my life thus far.

I was in Havelock on July 11, 2015 when my phone rang, and I knew. I knew before I even answered with a racing heart and quickened breathing, my heart and stomach were suddenly in knots. I slid the green talk button on my screen and did the exact opposite of what the button prompted. I heard breathing and she heard mine. She didn’t even have to say a word and I felt my heart shatter into a million pieces.

I never thought I’d be the barrier of new like this, never thought I’d have to share the news with my parents that their child, never thought I’d be an only child. So sad with his own life, has given himself to the stars, a place where he was free from himself and the demons that clouded his mind.

He was gone, left his body to a noose and a tree on a beautiful beach in the harbor of Port Hope, a place that had changed him in a matter of 7 short months.

I genuinely have never ever felt so much sadness bleed through my skin.

All I can say is that I’m sorry. I’m sorry I never told you how much you meant to me, how proud I am of you, how much I love you and I’m sorry that I couldn’t help.

The last conversation I held with my brother I shared in the Eulogy I gave at his funeral.

He asked me, through purple lips and medicated eyes, if we had a home. I held his hand, his cold clammy, frail hand, and I didn’t have much of an answer.

Our lives had never played out like most. But in this moment, his lack of met expectations had gotten the best of him.

I wish I could have answered him that night on the 4 hour drive to my aunts. But it wasn’t until now that I could conjure up an answer for my beloved brother.

Home isn’t a house- it isn’t even a set place on a map. It’s wherever the people you loved and loved you were, whenever you were together. Not a place, but a moment, a feeling.

Your home is in my heart now brother, where forever you can stay.

Rest in paradise handsome.

thatgymgirl. xo

Project Semicolon A Mental Health Organization

This too shall pass.

Crisis

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Noun

Commonly defined as:

1. a stage in a sequence of events at which the trend of all future events,especially for better or for worse, is determined; turning point.

2. condition of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or international affairs, leading to a decisive change.

3.a dramatic emotional or circumstantial upheaval in a person’s life.

4. the point in the course of a serious disease at which a decisive change occurs, leading either to recovery or to death.

Life never ceases to amaze me you know, time passes to fast, people age to quick, love to little, work too hard and never live enough. And it kills me to know the only time we stop to see these brutally honest facts is in the face of adversity. In loss, in change, in misfortune, through hardships and hurdles.

My brothers young, hes smart, an enthusiast of art and cuisine. He was always there for me when I was little. He taught me to cook, and draw, and how to be independent and take care of myself. Then life happened our parents divorced and we went our separate ways. He stayed with her and I went with him.

14 years later he’s an addict, to all things alcohol and attention. He’s not the brother I knew under this devil and I don’t ever wish to see him this broken again. He is in full crisis mode and I can’t help but regret loosing touch with him through my teens, because maybe then things would be different.

How do you help someone you barely know anymore?

I owe it to him to support him but I can’t seem to wrap my head around his life.

How does someone become so broken?

I’m trying to understand his train of thought, to place myself in his shoes, but I just can not relate. The childhood he describes and his value are just so far off from mine. Maybe I grew up to fast, maybe I’m to realistic or cold hearted to believe that or sympathize.

So what do you do, feed them empty words that things will get better, don’t worry.. blahh blahh… do I believe that? yes, but I think the reality of the situation is more easily put as –  Put the bottle down and get your shit together because not one single person in this world is more important than yourself.

To me alcohol and drugs are a choice. its something you choose to do, if your stupid enough. but in this light, I’m starting to really see how addiction truly is a disease.

thatgymgirl.