For Brendon

When something like this happens, you think the world should stop.
That when something this senseless and terrible happens, that everyone should drop everything, that they should share in your grief, in your sadness.
If you can't go on, it means everyone else shouldn't, too.
Because someone you love is gone, a part of you is missing forever, and there is a hole in the world.
Nothing will ever be the same.
You're stagnant.
Yet, the world doesn't stop.
People go on, blind to your pain.
Ignorant of the suffering.
Unaware of the hole.

I was Googling "suicide statistics of chronic pain sufferers" when I overheard my mother mention funeral preparations.
I had come home early from work sick--the entirety of my lunch lost to the side effects of the drugs meant to lessen my physical pain.
Grandpa, I thought.
How would I approach this?
Grief doesn't confuse me, it's people--reactions are so different, and I am always unsure.
To touch, to keep a distance, to embrace, and for how long--these are hard questions to ask of the bereaved.
I stood in the doorway, waiting for her to turn around, to react.
Blankness.
This happens, sometimes. Shock. I think I understand, and I move to embrace her.
"Uncle Paul called. Brendan shot himself this morning. His mother found him."

Nothing in life can prepare you for these things, not even previous experience.
Not an uncle, not a father.
Each time it's different; each time, you're different.
He was seventeen, and this shouldn't have happened.
We grew up in separate states, and lived separate lives, but he was my blood.
When life is taken away before it begins, it makes you think.
Makes you put things into perspective.

Brendan, you probably didn't know I loved you.
You probably didn't know that I, too, struggle with life.
Maybe if you had, things would be different.
I'm sorry for your hurt.
I'm sorry you thought it would never end.
I'm sorry for everything you'll never be, but I loved you for everything you were.
I'll always remember the time you chased me around the house with Sock Em Bop Ems;
The time you got embarrassed for getting caught peeing in our back yard;
Always finding "Brandon" instead of "Brendon" on ornaments at Bronner's;
Your shenanigans and exploits as "Mr. Ass" at the Detroit Zoo.

I don't know how I'll face our family; your mom, you dad, your sister.
I don't know how I'll face seeing you again, one last time.
I don't know how I'll go on living, once the world starts up for me again.
I'd like to think I'll do something noble, like preventing this from ever happening again.
But I just don't know.
I'll miss you, Brendan.
And every time I see a "Brandon" ornament--I'll think of you.
Rest easy, cousin.