The Loss of My Little Brother

On the morning of November 18^th, 2007 I woke up around 7am and rolled over to check my phone. When the screen lit up I saw that my Dad had been trying to call me for several hours. I had been out the night before, got home late, and fell asleep with my phone on silent. Nothing alarmed me about seeing all his missed calls, not a single bad thought entered my head. Maybe he didn’t realize that all his calls had gone through, maybe he had an important question to ask me. Regardless, I called him back right away. Up until that moment I felt untouchable. Nothing bad would ever happen to me, to my family. You hear of tragedy affecting other people but that was them. Their bad luck, their misfortune. I had no idea that when I made that call my life would then be measured by before and after.

I remember that phone call through detailed escalation of my emotional space. If I allow myself to, I can be sent back to the exact moment and relive every word and the way in which they altered who I was. That significant of a change and impact still doesn’t make sense to me, to this day. I still can’t sort and process how a single moment could have such a distinguished ability to change my entire self and the paradigm I see the world through. As soon as I heard my Dad’s voice I felt his fear, I felt his panic, I felt his heart shattering. I also felt in that moment that what my Dad needed most was me, a vulnerability I had never experienced from him before. Barely being able to push his words through his sobs the first thing he said to me was “Daniel died in a car accident.”

In that moment my entire body tightened and I felt a significant part of me being stripped away. I sat up in bed and began yelling at him to stop talking, to shut up, to please stop. Please stop. I was reacting so strongly to something that didn’t make sense. I heard his words, but I was being thrust into a dark place that I had absolutely no understanding of. My brother was a guarantee. A constant. An extension of myself. He wasn’t someone I took for granted because to be “granted” implied that he was somehow separate from me. He was so deeply intertwined in every part of my identity that I had the complete inability to comprehend him being gone. My mind from there went haywire. I had never felt more out of control in my life yet my mind was frantically fighting to stay in control. There were moments I was on the ground screaming and sobbing while desperately trying to make time stop and reverse. And then my head would suddenly clear, my body would calm, the tension would release, and I would begin repeating to myself “everything is fine, this isn’t happening, everything is okay.” I wanted so badly to believe that it wasn’t real that for a few brief seconds I was able to believe it. Until logic would take over again and I’d be back on the ground, crippled by extreme helplessness. Like most people, I had always felt the need to control everything and to fix the broken parts, but this was something I had no way to fix, no way to change, no way to stop. 

For nearly a day after that phone call I knew no other details of my brother’s accident. I didn’t want to know. Of course, the worst possible scenarios were running through my mind of what could have happened to him. But it was much more manageable for them to remain made up scenarios in my head instead of the worst details being confirmed. I knew I couldn’t hear it. I couldn’t possibly endure learning of how he was hurt so badly that it took his life. My strong, resilient, capable, vibrant brother. It seemed impossible that there could be a force so strong that he couldn’t survive it. I still struggle with that. I’m sure I always will. The first detail I did learned was that my brother’s best friend, Tom, was in the car with him. They were both killed. Knowing that we weren’t the only family whose world had been turned upside down allowed me to step out of feeling so sorry for myself I could hardly breath, and instead be placed into their grief for a moment too. From there it was days until I learned any other details of what happened to them. And when I was unwillingly told, there are details that to this day I wish I didn’t know.

My experience with grief and the journey of “coping” has been confusing and non-linear. My brother was 1 year and 3 months younger than me. I had never known my life without him. There were many parts of my childhood that were unpredictable, chaotic and unstable. But the one thing that was always consistent and ever present was him. He walked through every day with me and shared every experience. Before I left for college, I don’t think I spent more than a few days away from him from the time he was born. The thing about siblings is when you have them you don’t have to be everything. Your existence is softened, held, freed and bolstered by theirs. Daniel, from a very young age, was naturally resilient and had the kind of strength and confidence that I never had. I very much believe that he provided me the footing I needed to overcome the challenges we faced. In that way, he was the part of me I needed but didn’t have on my own. He showed his love for me so effortlessly through his words and protectiveness. It was much more difficult for me to tell people how much I loved them and to show affection, as it was a vulnerability that I had been uncomfortable with. But he was very different. What I remember most was the way he would hug me. His hugs had the kind of energy and genuineness that would consume my entire body. I felt his adoration for me and I felt how proud he was that I was his sister. I struggle with the guilt of not showing my love for him enough; for not telling him more often how important he was to me, for not hugging him enough, not supporting him enough. But I also recognize that in only 18 years it was never going to be enough.

The last time I spoke with my brother was a few days before his accident. He called me around 10 pm one night while I was away at OSU. My dad was out of town and he was home alone. He told me he was lonely and wanted someone to talk to. He had heard that I had broken up with my boyfriend and was calling to make sure I was okay. Daniel had been struggling for a long time with the break-up from his long-time girlfriend and I didn’t want to add my challenges onto his, so I told him I was fine and not to worry about it. I knew he was having a difficult time pulling himself out of the grief he felt. I saw the way in which his life was becoming more disorganized and the way in which he was falling into his emotions and unable to see past them. A few weeks after my brother’s accident him and I were meant to take a long trip to Australia with our Grandpa. It would be just us three. I was planning on taking that time to better understand what he was going through and help him to move past it. There was so much I wanted to say to him to help him gain a better perspective on his life and make choices he felt proud of. Of course looking back I wish I had done it sooner. I had no idea I’d never get the chance to.

During his time here, Daniel taught me lessons that made the greatest impact on my confidence and resiliency. And after his death he continued to teach me invaluable lessons that have helped transform me into a person I’m proud of. My brother had an incredible ability to connect with people. He did so through his intelligent humor and his lack of judgement toward others. He had a gentle and calming demeanor that offered a place of comfort. He was laid back, tolerant, and down to earth. While I was cautious and a rule follower, he was risk seeking and often pushed the limits as much as he could. I had always been envious of how “cool” he was. It was effortless. He had an understanding of people that allowed him to recognize who they were at their core-past the walls and awkwardness. My brother was hilarious. Some of the best memories I have are of him quoting and re-enacting scenes from his favorite movie-“Joe Dirt.” I remember him playing videos games for hours and the house being consumed with the sound of him talking shit to the other players over his headset. He was witty and sharp. Him and I would often spend summers at our Grandmas house outside of Bend, OR. It was much harder for me to occupy my time out there but he was always keeping busy. He would build forts out of wood in the backyard, hike through the forest with his BB gun, fish, swim or walk the neighborhood making friends. I would follow him everywhere and he never objected to me tagging along. He loved having me with him and I loved being around him. One day my Grandma let us take the snowmobile up the logging roads by ourselves. We were high up in the hills miles from home when our snowmobile got stuck in the snow. It was getting dark and I had given up right away thinking we’d have to make the long walk back in the cold. But he would have never let that happen. He was stubborn, capable and positive. After a few hours he got us unstuck from that spot on his own, all while reassuring me through my worry and pessimism.

The loss of life is a universal experience that everyone confronts at some point and something that everyone processes differently. It was common for people to reach out to me after Daniel’s accident and share their own experience with grief as a way to ensure me I’d pull through mine; to tell me they’ve been through it too and one day I’ll be okay-the panic won’t last forever. I understand the desire to comfort people through relating to them and I truly appreciated every person that sought to wrap me in their words in an attempt to alleviate my sadness. I saw a grief counselor for one session a few months after he passed. I remember her listing the stages of grief and what I could expect emotionally in the months and years ahead. But none of this helped. In fact, much of it made me feel more anxious. I wanted so desperately to not be apart of the “club” of those who had lost someone close to them. I didn’t want to relate, I didn’t want to belong. Spelling out how I should expect to feel, to me, was a way of normalizing something that felt anything but normal. And it also took away from my own unique relationship with my brother. Even if someone had been through it before-they weren’t me and they didn’t lose him. For that reason, much of my healing and processing has been isolating, but I needed it to be that way. I needed to immerse myself in the gravity of what I lost and determine the pieces of myself I needed to rebuild in his absence. I needed to embrace my vulnerability and the fear I had of having to face my life without him. I needed to learn to forgive myself and to release myself of my guilt and regret. I also knew I needed to be strong for my Dad and for my Mom. I knew that the pain they felt was far more profound, as nothing can compare to the pain of losing a child. For my Dad in particular, I knew the only thing getting him through each day was his desire to ensure I was okay. He continued to put me first, even in the face of surreal heartbreak.

Apart from my Dad, I like to think that my brother got me through my hardest days. He was still there holding my hand and walking me through my grief because he was still apart of who I was. On the days I felt so consumed with anger and sadness that I could hardly stand, he had already instilled within me the mental resiliency to push forward. He had been teaching that to me my whole life. And every moment during our life together that he made it known how much he loved me and wanted me to be okay, helped me to wake up day after day fighting to be the best version of myself. I knew the best way for me to show my brother how much I loved him was for me to live joyfully and with purpose. His protectiveness over me has lasted long after his death and will persevere through the entirety of my life. I have developed a new “normal” and have completely reshaped my identity. My identity still includes my brother, but in a different way. I carry him with me in everything I do and feel incredibly lucky that he was able to share his short, but meaningful life with me. I just wish he was still here to make his impact reach even farther and experience joy of his own.

I know my experience with grief and what helped me to survive each day may look very different from someone else’s experience. Some feel empowered and supported through connecting with those that have gone through something similar in the wake of their most severe grief. I’m in a place now that I do find more comfort in that than I did at the beginning. I’m in a place that I love sharing about my brother and he deserves to be talked about and remembered. I know that there have been many people in my life that have wanted to ask me about him but didn’t out of fear they’d upset me. It could also stem from their own uncomfortableness from the heaviness of it. All of which I understand. Topics like this are sensitive and unique to each person. But through the years I’ve met and spoken with many people that have their own story of loss and what’s been most consistent is their desire to share their story. They want to be asked. They want to talk about the person they love. They want to talk about the gravity of that loss. They don’t want the person they loved and lost to be forgotten or be transformed into an awkward, off limits piece of their past. I’ll always have feelings of sadness when talking about my brother but I know that comes from how much he meant to me and to others. I’ve gotten comfortable with the grief and I’ve learned to embrace it. My hope moving forward is not that people feel sorry for me or for my family, rather that they join us in celebrating my brother’s life. That they join us in remembering him, empathetically loving him as we did, and keeping his life’s energy alive and thriving. I also hope to offer encouragement to anyone reading this to share your story and to talk about the person you’ve lost. There can be great healing power in story telling and reflection, when the time comes that’s right for you. ❤