In Remembering

It was almost mid morning on a Tuesday when the phone call came through. My fiance (then) had already dropped of my stepdaughter at her preschool for the morning, and our eight year old had been in her school for a few hours. I was exhausted still, and my stepson and fiance were passed out for a few hours as well.

My phone started ringing, and I woke up to "Mom" on my screen. I quickly got out of bed, went to the door so I didn't wake up my family.

"Hey, Mama!"

"Evelyn, Bruce is gone."

There was something in her voice that made me stop, my heart still in the quiet. I remember the feel of the wood floor under my bare feet, the way the sunlight hit the hallway directly in front of me, but I was still in shadow. I never heard the rushing of blood to my ears. Not that morning, and not in the five days that followed.

But at first, there was confusion.

"What do you mean, he's gone? Did he-"

"I just got off the phone with the Medical Examiner in Spokane. Bruce was found this morning. He's gone."

I had made it the few feet into our living room, and was standing in front of our leather couch. I think I had been planning on sitting, but I never made it. I just dropped in front of it, to my knees. 

I don't remember much of the conversation that happened after my mother said those words, but I remember the sense of urgency that coursed through me. My housemate was already up in the kitchen while I was on the phone, and I urgently relayed that my brother had passed, and she opened up our home as a primary station for my family to gather. 

I don't remember much of the conversation that happened after my mother said those words, but I remember the utter shock, and screaming from my stomach after hanging up the phone, unable to even comprehend the shock that my body was experiencing. I couldn't feel anything, and then I screamed. Gutterally. Loudly. 

My fiance rushed to me, asked what was going on, and all I could say was: "Bruce. He's DEAD."

And for the first time that day, I was comforted. My then-fiance, now husband, has always been good at enveloping me in times of anguish. And that day, a day of no words, a day of loss, I needed him. And he was there. 

We stood there, me sobbing, grabbing at his sides, trying to pull as much strength from him as I could, him stoic and silent, though I'm sure he was just as overwhelmed as I was. We could have stayed there for hours. But my phone was just starting to ring, as it would continue to throughout that dreadful day. 

It was my sister, so I pulled myself out of my lover's embrace, and ran to the stairs for some modicum of privacy in our already full house. 

"Hey." It was all I could muster up. And even in that moment, I remember feeling like it was such a bullshit word, like everything was fine, like I was excited to get that call from her, but the reality was far from that. 

She didn't respond. Not at first, but I knew she was there. I could hear the ragged breath, and I could feel the pregnant dread coming through the phone from 1,600 miles away.

"I know, Kathy, I know."

And then the sobbing came. From both of us. The incoherent heartbreak that can only be felt by siblings. Apart from the reassurance and then giving her instructions on how to get a ticket to get home as SOON AS POSSIBLE, I don't even remember the conversation. 

But that was the moment for me. Even subconsciously, my moment for grief was over. I was the big sister again, the figure that had helped my mother raise my three younger siblings over a decade before. It was my responsibility to help them, guide them, and protect them as much as I could, even though in that moment there was no protection that I could offer. I was in guardian mode. 

I didn't leave that guardian mode for almost nine months after that. I still haven't left guardian mode completely, but I do know now that it is okay to let my guard down, let my husband hold me when the grief is overwhelming and it's hard to even sit up straight. But this isn't that story. Not yet, anyways.

There was, and still is, so much that happened on that day, two years ago. And this post is something that I've been trying to get out of my head and onto some kind of medium for over a year now. Because, in all honesty, I'm terrified of forgetting.

Of forgetting him. Of forgetting how it felt to lose him. Of becoming so numb by the passage of time that when another year passes by, his name comes up in my memories as just a reminder instead of an ache. 

Life is made in those feelings. The joy, the pain, the anguish and exuberance. These are the feelings that make those moments the ones we remember. 

And I don't ever want to forget.

I want to remember. To feel that memory, and more, in my very bones when the time comes. I want to embody Bruce's legacy and become the person that helps my children to know who he was, how he touched those around him, even in the most human ways (because he wasn't perfect, he was just my little brother). I want to be one of the reasons that he's never forgotten, even past my own death.

Because in remembering, in living, this will be my legacy, and through me, his.