It's my birthday tomorrow. The first one in my entire life without you.
Tomorrow you won't call me, or text me, or ignore me, or write on my facebook wall.
I've been dreading it for awhile now.
Been avoiding it for awhile now, to be honest, but it's here and so now I can't avoid your absence anymore.
You are a tsunami. I have been running away from you for my life, because I know when the towering wave breaks over me, my bones will break, my heart will shatter. The undertow will pin me to the rocks and I won't be able to hold my breath against the thought of you forever, so I will gasp the salty water in, and in will flood you, and all that comes along with it. The guilt, the despair, the never-ending loneliness that I can't seem to shake off, no matter who is with me, will drown me.
I had forgotten exactly how this felt, but I don't know how I managed to do that.
I remember sitting in a car when I was 16, with a boy I liked, and we were bullshitting around, talking about the number of kids we each wanted to have.
He said two, like him and his sister. The perfect amount.
But I said that you had to have at least three, because if one of them died, and there was only two, then the other one would be all alone.
I wonder if Fate was listening in, and she took that as some sort of challenge.
I apologize, because that's not what I intended.
I have this voicemail saved from you. My phone is shattered, and slow, and the battery dies and the picture quality has lowered significantly.
But you called me after I had fallen asleep already last year. And you said, "I was gonna call you earlier, but I didn't..... and I didn't do the Facebook thing or text ya either, but Happy Birthday, Jaim. I love you."
Maybe this is so hard because I will never get back to the age I was the last time that I saw you. This is proof that time is really passing. Proof that I am growing older and you are dead.
I thought about visiting the cemetery after work today. Maybe I will tomorrow, I don't know. I haven't been there since we buried you in the snow. I think about it, but it never brought me closer to Mia.
I remember you telling me that you went sometimes, like on Halloween when someone watched you the whole time, thinking you were a vandal and not a heartbroken big brother. But I never felt her there, really. And I am afraid to go and not feel you around either.
I wish you were here to tell me that it's gonna be okay.
