Never Discount Yourself

You are not replacable

A month ago, my little brother died.

It’s been hard. It’s been bad. He was young.

So many of his friends were shocked by the suddenness of his death and have asked “what happened?” I have learned that this question means “did he commit suicide or did he die of an overdose?” The answer to both these questions is “no”. Past that, no one really cares about what happened.

I don’t want to over-share here because this is a family affair. He was my brother and I love him very much, but not as much as I should have.

I could write pages about my brother. He was good man who led a hard life. He was a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and his experiences there pushed him toward a lot of dark places. A lot of events in his life worked against him and he worked against himself a lot of the time. He fell into despair that I wish I could have helped with.

I’m being careful with the details because this story is not fully mine and I don’t want to give too much of it out. Grief is a difficult thing. It is usually private but the private nature of it means that most people aren’t prepared for it. It’s good to understand grief so that we can show it more appropriately when it comes for us.

The one thing I want to say about my brother is that he didn’t love himself enough. He didn’t commit suicide, but he also didn’t value his own life enough. In the wake of his death, people poured out their love for him. Everyone was devastated, everyone was shocked. The scale of passion for him, the scope of the love that we all had for him, it was all out in the open but a few weeks too late.

If I’m being honest, I’m not writing this to talk about my brother. I’m writing this to talk about us. About me and you. We need to reach out. If we need to be seen, let us tell our loved ones that we need to be seen.

Let’s reach out to the people who matter to us. Don’t push them off or push them away. They care for us more than we know. We can’t really know how profound that love is until we ask for it. It seems ridiculous to ask for love and attention, but I want to say as clear as day that this is much better than the alternative. The alternative is that they wish they could give that love and attention but they can’t because it is too late.

You are not replacable. No one will take your place, not ever. Your absence will be profound and it will be most profound among the people who are most important to you. Your absence will leave a gaping hole in the world. That’s how it should be. But that means that you are a bulwark against this grief. You are holding back the void by living here and loving those around you. Don’t give up on that. It’s important. You’re important.

Time is short. Make it count.