Last week marked seven years since I lost my brother. Seven years that’s simultaneously felt like it just happened seven hours ago and seven lifetimes ago. Yet through all the ups and downs, the triumphs and tragedies of the experience, I‘m still here. I’m still standing. To say the experience was a transforming one would be a total understatement. It’s completely changed everything I thought I knew about life, unconditional love, and inner strength and resilience, all in the face of the most heartbreaking of personal tragedies.
I think perhaps the most important and unlikeliest of lessons came in the form of my own relationship with grief. In the early days of the weird, new reality that was life without my big brother in it, I pushed my grief down as far as it could go. I didn’t want to face it. I didn’t want to process it. I faked a smile, hoping I could just make myself feel better and normal again. As we all know, it just doesn’t work that way, no matter how hard we try.
I wandered for years after Josh died. I felt lost and lonely despite having my husband and family. The loneliness was that of a little sister just wanting to have her brother back. It’s an ache I carry with me to this very day. Jobs came and went; my path became dark and murky. I just wanted to find my true purpose, but I had no idea where to even begin. In the midst of all the upheaval and uncertainty, I did something I never thought I’d be able to—i.e., sit and just BE with my grief. I learned how to be friends with it instead of enemies. I learned that I’ll never get rid of it because it’s a part of me. I learned to grow and move AROUND it as opposed to trying to run away from it. I’ve fallen as many times and gotten up just as many more. I’ve laughed just as much as I’ve cried. I’ve lived life, as much as it’s often made me feel guilty for doing so. These are all things that we’ll all continue to experience. It’s just how it is, and you know what? It’s okay.
In this moment in time, seven years after the Kay I used to be, ceased to be, I’m in a place I never thought I’d arrive at: peace. I’ll never again be the person I was before February 5, 2017, and you know what? I don’t want to be. That part of me needed to burn because it made way for the person I’m DESTINED to be. I’m different. I’m more awake. I’m whole, yet empty at the same time. My grief and I walk alongside each other in both light and shadow, not fearing the other, but wanting to learn from each other, as we continue to move through life.
For the first time in seven years—no, for the first time EVER, I found my true compass. I was able to realign it and not be afraid to use my heart to follow it. I’m going back to school to become a Physical Therapist Assistant. I have an amazing job that enables me to help people until I’m able to do what the therapists do. I have the unrelenting support of my family and husband. I’ve learned to let the things that no longer serve me go. I feel like I’m finally turning back to life and pursuing what I’m meant to. The truth is, I don’t think I would’ve arrived where I’m at now had I not been willing to experience the grief as it came—and continues to come up. Sometimes you just have to collapse inward before you can be reborn. I mean, stars collapse upon themselves in explosions of light before being reborn.
There is always hope. The universe is always showing us the way, even on the days where we just can’t see it. I’m testament to this. Each day I wake up and am able to stand just a little taller than I did the day before. After all, we don’t reach the stars by lying on our backs. We reach them by REACHING for them. So keep getting up. Keep feeling. Keep getting comfortable with the uncomfortable. Keep loving and keep REACHING for the stars. The ones we lost are waiting to take us there when our lives are fully lived. So live your life to the best of your ability. If you don’t have hope today, don’t worry… I have hope FOR YOU. And I ALWAYS will.
Love and light to my found family. Always.
Kay
