Missing My Boy

He was born three years and almost nine months after me and he was always "my boy." He was my treasure and my gift and I'd have given my life for him. For a long time, I wished that our parents had died and at least left me him. 

But he died when he was 18; this coming week it will be 29 years since he killed himself, just days before my birthday. I always get depressed in January. 

The thing about suicide (which I conveniently chose to ignore when I was thinking hard about it, some time ago) is that you never get over that grief. It remains sharp, like a deep cut from a sharp knife. It gets better, but never entirely heals. Everyone I've ever talked to who survived a loved one's suicide tells me that. Even people who were friends, not even close, remain affected for years and years.

So every January I bleed inside. 

I loved my brother more than is typical, as far as I can tell. When my folks brought him home and told me to take care of them ("for the moment" was unspoken and so, to my young mind, "forever" was what they meant), I took it on as a lifelong duty, one that I loved. 

I couldn't stand for him to get hurt. But when another boy picked a fight on MB after school one day, I honored my brother's eight-year-old ego and just kept other kids from joining in the fight. And I explained to our folks why my brother had been in a fight and that it wasn't his fault. 

I only intervened when necessary, such as when he wanted to ride his bike up a ramp that would actually have tipped him onto his head (we didn't have bike helmets in the old days), or when he thought he could make his Evel Knievel doll action figure jump over our swimming pool ... all 36 feet of length. I think he eventually tried jumping it the 12-foot width — the toy ended up on the roof.

I meant it when I said he was my treasure. I thought he was mine, more than anything or anyone else. I looked forward to growing up and growing old with him, telling each other's kids stories on each other, enjoying having family for all of our lives.

MB taught me how to throw a football in a spiral and how to pitch a baseball. We played catch. We played tea party. He set aside certain of his toy cars for me to play with because our dad wouldn't let me have "boy toys." I gave him one of my dolls that was the right size to be a wife for Evel Knievel (and took her back when I found her upside-down in the mud, naked). We were best friends and worst enemies.

We were regular siblings. We fought each other. We fought others as a united unit. I went to college and didn't know how to stay in close touch with my own brother. We tried our best together to take care of our mom after Dad died. We both disliked the man Mom chose four years later as her second husband. 

But that last summer, MB was different. His mood was dark and unfathomable and monochromatic. He pushed me away. He gave stuff he loved to his friends (including things that were half mine!). If we'd have known what we were looking at, we'd have known he was suicidal. But we didn't. 

I think that Mom never forgave herself for kicking him out of the house, even though she had many very good reasons even beyond the alcoholism and drug use. Me? I have guilt about my not staying as close as I feel I should have, and still carry some anger and blame toward Mom's second husband for causing my brother to leave just before that last Christmas, that last time I'd have had the chance to tell MB how much I loved him. 

Because I did want that. I felt something was wrong. I wanted to reach out, but I didn't have the chance. I don't know if you ever get over that sort of regret. No one that I know has. I haven't. Not yet. Maybe next year, after three decades. 

I'll let you know.