Each time that I need to set a new alarm on my iphone I see the alarm that I had set for 7:00 AM the morning of your funeral. I know it’s this exact one because the label reads “I LOVE YOU JAMES” …It’s been seven years since I used it, but my heart won’t let me delete it.
We were early for your funeral. I remember that because I was dreading getting there, terrified of having all of this be real, so instead of going to the church first we stopped by mcdonalds down the road from our childhood home. My stomach was too queasy to eat but I ordered an iced coffee and while I sat sipping from the cup and trying not to be swallowed into what felt like a pit of hollowness, I remember looking around and thinking about how many memories we had there.
I remembered us getting kiddie cones for 10 cents while spending hours in the old playplace, and then before we knew it we were too big for kiddie cones anymore and they turned us down when we ordered them.
I remembered the time I drove us in grandpa’s van to get dinner, how I slammed on the brakes while pulling out of the parking lot which caused our sodas to tip and turn into a pool of sticky brown cola all over the floor. I remember swearing loudly, and then apologizing for swearing, while you laughed.
I remembered how your then girlfriend worked there when you were in high school and how often you hung out there while she worked. I see her often now, your ex-girlfriend. Just recently she was working when I took the boys for ice cream after a basketball game and she made Jace a special chocolate shake with oreo pieces and whipped cream. She’s glowing and happy and pregnant with her second child now. She named her first baby after you.
It’s been years since your funeral and yet it remains the same that everywhere I go, I still look around at all of these old spaces and remember you. There are so many spaces still filled with you that sometimes I forget you’re not living and breathing in them anymore. Sometimes it feels like we were all frozen in time then, and where we are now is just a dream, not real life.
I’ve been thinking lately about those weeks and months after you left and how vividly I can recall my ribcage aching with the hurt of it all. When I would cry into a bag of ice because my eyes were swollen from crying, how the tears would sting because the skin on my face became so raw, how I couldn’t stop them from flowing whenever I was alone. When I would wake up in the mornings and have this split second in time where I could soak in the sweet escape of sleep before the ache of reality hit all over again. Day after day. Week after week. When my chest would hurt so badly that I had to press on it hard with the palm of my hand, thinking this could be a heart attack before discovering these were panic attacks. I didn’t know that you could so palpably and physically feel a broken heart that way.
I remember wondering if that pain would ever end. I longed for some relief, for the ability to breathe again. People would say “time will help” and so I survived messily and I waited for time to do its job, like I knew it would. And you know what? It did. Time gave me perspective. Time gave me fresh hope and new life and the ability to live alongside the pain. I can breathe. I am stronger, so much stronger now. I know hope because I’ve lived it, from the bottom up, seeing signs of you all around me. I am healing. I am growing. I have started a new life over in this new world we live in without you here.
And now that I’m here I’m sad because, what does this mean? I start to forget your face sometimes. And your laugh, God, I miss your laugh. I have to close my eyes and picture you walking into Mom’s house on Sunday night for dinner. I have to focus intensely, imagine myself hugging you, laughing with you, being teased by you. I have to force your face to come back to me in my mind. It gets so much farther away every year, and I hate that more than I hate most anything at all.
Life now is so drastically different than it was then. The only meat I eat is seafood and I own ten chickens, which I think are both things you would definitely make fun of me for. I’m still working for Dr. Huff as a surgery manager now and I’m writing a memoir. The boys are so tall you wouldn’t even recognize them anymore. Jace has your sarcastic sense of humor and Beck’s facial expressions still remind me so much of you.
We sold our big beautiful house a few months after you died. I know how much you loved that house. You used to come over for birthday parties and fireworks and bbq’s, and you used to stay and sleep on the couch if you were too tired to drive home. I loved that house too and I’m sorry we sold it, but it was just…too big I guess. It didn’t feel right there after you left. Once you were gone I craved a simple minimalist life in the same way you crave water after you run a marathon or hike through the desert in July - I needed it. Honestly I wanted to move to Alaska - or anywhere that was so far away and so simple that no one, not even my grief, could find me - but instead we moved back to Dan’s condo, the same place you came to play call of duty with Dan when we were first married. We spent four years there living small and slow and simple and it was just what I needed while I healed.
Now we have a house back in Smithfield, where you and I grew up but out on the west side in the farmlands. Our new home reminds me of Grandma Speakman’s house. It makes me feel happy and nostalgic somehow, as though I have been here before. Even the black capped chickadees sing from our trees every morning, just like our house when we were kids. And I run into people from the canyon all of the time. Some of them bring you up, tell me how much they miss you and usually add some funny memories they have of you from scouts. I like when people do that, when they bring up their memories with you. It feeds an emptiness inside of me.
As for the rest…Chris left the airforce and they live in a big house next to his in-laws with four dogs and a really nice work-from-home job. Jess has her own podcast and a job at the hospital and she’s been sober for 3 months now. Zach graduated high school and works at home depot. Mom retired for a while, but got bored and went back part time. Dad has been gone almost a year and a half now - he died from the very thing we always feared he’d die from but you already know that of course, because I can’t imagine a world where you weren’t the very first person to greet him when he got to the other side.
And we just passed your birthday, which is why I’m writing to you now. You would have been THIRTY-FOUR this year, which feels impossible. Your birthday is always so complicated now….how do you celebrate someone who should be here, but isn’t here? How do you feel happy someone was born and then taken tragically far too young? How do you smile when the world is so unfair and you can’t make sense of any of this?
But the week before your birthday something surprising and interesting happened - your name popped up on my phone for the first time in years. I was starting a text message to a brand new contact and as I began typing her name my thumb slipped. “J-A-M”..suddenly, there you were. It startled me in a new way that I can’t really explain, other than to say…it made me happy to see your name. Instead of crying because I couldn’t text you, I smiled because somehow, without a logical explanation….I could feel that you’re still here.
I usually go to your grave with a Dr. Pepper and sit sullenly and feel hollow again on your birthday. But this year I decided to do something different. For your gift: I tried to be happy. I figured that’s the best I could do for you, since all your life you were a peacemaker and a giver and a loyal brother who only wanted everyone else to be happy. So I went to my favorite spot in the mountains surrounded by trees and I filled my lungs with fresh air and I listened to a black capped chickadee singing in the forest all day long. I thought of you a hundred times and I sat around a fire and I listened to stories and I laughed and I knew, really knew, what it meant to be alive right now.
It wasn’t easy, if I’m being honest, because I freaking miss you kid. But I did it for you because I know it’s what you would have wanted, and I hope it made you smile.
Happy Birthday, little brother. Love you forever.