[329/366] the year of Novembers

[cosmolinguist]

Today is 15 years since my brother died.

It is a testament to what a tough year 2020 has been that this normally dreaded day in a dreaded month has barely felt like a blip. Not because I'm handling it particularly well, just that I'm handling everything else as badly as I normally only expect to in November, the month where the cold and dark first sink their teeth in, the month for the dead.

I was surprised I didn't see more entries written about the continuing loss of my brother in this plague year. The early days of lockdown (the "first," in some ways, but it's been constant for me since then so this isn't "a second lockdown" but "still lockdown") the feeling of having my life pulled out from under me, of not knowing what was going to happen, of being scared of how I'll cope with it, is the only time since he died that I've felt that profoundly mentally and emotionally awful.

Maybe that's why, less than a month into lockdown, I started to have the dreams again about him still being alive, something I hadn't done for years (I read that the pandemic gave a lot of us weird dreams). Some of them seem fine while I'm dreaming because we're doing mundane things -- I remember one where we were at my aunt's for Christmas and she asked him to grab another bottle of wine out of the fridge, and I woke up with this image, more vivid than many of my memories even though it's of something that never happened -- but at least one was distressing at the time, in the dream, because I was specifically comforted by my brother's presence since we were with my dad and he'd started acting weird like he'd had a stroke or was acquiring dementia or something. Another vivid image I still have is thinking I'm glad he's here to talk to, I'm glad I don't have to deal with Dad on my own.

And maybe because of all the dreams, all this feels extra...present this year. Silly little things like surveys asking me about my relationships with different people (like for a language survey what language I speak with different groups, or for an LGBT+ survey whether different groups of people in my life know about my sexuality or gender) are bothering me more than they used to when I get to the question about siblings: to answer as if I have them is incorrect, but so is answering them as if I don't. I'm thinking so much about what I'm missing as my first Christmas without my family looms. I woke up this morning missing not just my brother but people who knew him. Even Andrew never got to meet him. Emigrating barely two months after he died means my life splits neatly into two halves, before and after. And the only people I really talk to from before are my parents.

I did talk to them Sunday night, but not about this; I made sure to call them to give them (my mom, really) a chance to do this before the dreaded week, but instead the conversation was wall-to-wall U.S. politics. At least my parents say things like "White supremacy is a problem" and "socialism isn't bad, we want socialized heath care" and "we saw a yard sign that said 'Jesus 2020' and thought that was a little bit over the top", but it was exhaustingly unrelenting; I didn't even get any gossip or updates on the weather!

So the only "conversation" I can get about my brother is with my past self, so I read over some of the entries with this tag. I'm surprised at how much it helped, actually -- as much as anything can, which is still not a lot. It was interesting observing some patterns that move too slowly for me to notice at the time: I've always wondered how to handle "do you have any siblings?" as a small-talk question, I've always worried about how unchanging the journal entries all feel, how sad I am that nothing is ever changing about my brother any more. I woke up feeling like that today, wondering if I'd even bother to say anything this year (apparently I thought the same thing by the time it'd been five years).

I am writing something again this year, partly to continue that conversation with my future self if I want to look back on this too, and partly because along with feeling like there's nothing new to say I did notice changes; I used to say I didn't mind the date of the anniversary itself but I stopped in the last few years and I certainly am minding it more lately. Two years ago I said yes to a group outing with tickets for something at the Leeds Library that just happened to be on this date. I didn't say anything, I thought I'd be fine and the distraction might be good, but then my company was found wanting. And for last year's Thanksgiving I told Facebook something like "I hate Thanksgiving but having to treat it like a normal day where I'm a functioning person turns out to not be good either." Maybe it is just as well there wasn't anywhere I could go or anyone I could see today. I'm not going to make plans that assume/require me to be fine next year.

Comments

[barakta]

Thinking of you and your family and the ongoing experience of grief and loss that you have to live with.

[worlds_of_smoke]

♥ -offers tea/coffee and support-

[jesse_the_k]

It's been thirty years since my mother died and I always feel something.

Thank you for sharing the process of grieving and incorporating loss in your daily life.

I think that carrying loss will be acknowledged in the next few years because of the pandemic (as it was after the Flu/WWI).

[cosmolinguist]

Yes it'll be interesting to see how grief and loss get new layers of cultural construction in the next few years.

[ludy]

Gentle Thoughts.

It’s 29 years now since my SchoolFriend died - I’m much more adjusted to life without her in it but I still find the anniversary difficult (it just becomes differently difficult...)

[cosmolinguist]

I hope my brother's school friends are still thinking of him. :) I imagine so. He had a lot of good friends.

[momentsmusicaux]

*hug*

[sfred]

<3

[rmc28]

<3

[white_hart]

*hugs*

[shewhostaples]

<3 <3 <3

That sounds so hard. Much love.

[otter]

Sending love and hugs to you.