It's Been 4 weeks.

Time is funny now. It's been a month since you died, but my world seems to have come to a stand still, so a month doesn't seem right. I've begun to process how life is without you and I have to tell you, I hate it.
I never knew how much I counted on you being there until you were gone. That's a shitty thing to admit, huh?
I spend most of my time holding it together, because I don't want my kids to have memories of their mom crying all the time. I just want them to have a happy childhood. I want them to not worry.
But the other day, I listened to a song that made me think of you, that I didn't know would make me think of you, and I cried so hard my vision blurred and I felt my body being stretched into a million shattered pieces, and Silas walked into the kitchen and sat beside me until I pulled the pieces back together.
It is amazing how much care a little boy can take with a broken grownup.

I call Mom every day now.
I cry in the car anytime I'm alone.
I wish you were here to tell me it was going to be okay. I wish you were here to be angry at. I wish you were here to cry with. I wish you were here to help me.

I wish I would have helped you.
I think back to a specific night, the one before you birthday this year. You were spiraling. You called me, you had nowhere to go. You had overdosed two nights before, I knew you were still using because you didn't want me to know. I told you to go to a hospital. I told you to go to a hospital and then rehab.
I know you wanted me to ask you to come stay the night.
I wanted to tell you to come over.
But I was afraid. I thought that you needed to do it on your own. I thought that I should listen to what the experts said. I called Mom to tell her what was going on. I wanted to make sure I was doing the right thing, but I know that she wanted you to come over too. But I wanted to be absolved of it, of this sin of turning my brother away.

I wish I would have told you to come over.
I think about that all the time.
I wonder if you would have known that you could always stop by... I wonder if things would have turned out different.
I remember when you came home from Florida, I remember you saying you didn't like being away because it was weird, not having somewhere you could always just go. "There's something about not having anyone," is how you said it, and I remember that made my heart stop for a minute, and I wonder if that's how you felt. It brings an awful metallic taste to my mouth and I hope that you knew that we were all always here, we just wanted you to really be here too.
I hope that you are finding some peace up there. I miss you every day.