Hi Bubba. I just want you to know that i miss you and I regret not talking to you more. I wish we could’ve been close like how we were when we were younger. I miss you everyday more and more. I’m so lost without you – you were everything to me. And I will always remember and love you no matter what. Even if your stupid self decided it was the only way out. But I don’t blame you; you did what you needed in the moment. You’re an idiot. But forever my idiot. Love, your sibling.

I miss you. It’s been more than 2 months since you passed. You missed my birthday. You missed Nanny’s 80th. I don’t blame you for any of it, and I hope you saw these days.

I hope you see every day. The good and the bad. I hate to admit that there have been both. I hate that there are still bad days, I know that’s not what you wanted for us. I hate that there are good days; it’s been 2 months – how could there be ‘good days.’

Paul, I hope you understand (understood). I don’t know whether to bury the past or carry it with me? There is a straightforward answer: you are the past now and it’s best I carry that with me. But it’s not so simple, or else it wouldn’t be a question.

Should I let go of everyone I met before I knew of your struggles (maybe they distracted me)? Should I let go of our parents (how could they let you go and make me stay)? What should I do (maybe you knew the answer but I’m afraid you didn’t)?

I will never know the answers, that’s a truth that I wish you never showed me. Paul, I love you. Everyone wishes you were back. I hope you found something that I can’t imagine but will discover, in due time.

And in the flip side, I wish you learned how full life is. At 23, I don’t understand, which makes me all the more sure you didn’t know at 19. Still, I hope I can show you now while it’s too late. How to take the good with the bad; the beautiful with the ugly. I hope you see.

When I meet you (in due time), I hope we can share stories of the different paths we took. I hope neither was better than the other.

But most of all I hope I get to see you again.

Dear Bud,

You have been buried for 30 days today. I saw you for the last time that day. The worst and most necessary thing I’ve ever had to do.

You had only just turned 15. My baby brother. Still shorter than me. You looked like such a baby. It came out of nowhere. It was shocking, how could a baby have done what you did? Known what you knew to do? I’ve tried to understand, but there were no warnings. It still doesn’t make sense. I talked to you a few days before on the phone. You complained about a school trip you had been on. I laughed with you about how hot and miserable it sounded. You said you were still glad you went, but that you never wanted to do it again. You were kind to others. You were kind to animals. You were a know-it-all. You told me I made Kraft Mac and cheese wrong. And that I didn’t unload the dishwasher in the proper order. I stand by my Mac and cheese method, but grant you may have a point about the dishwasher.

For two days in a row I have not cried. Today I began to feel sick to my stomach. I needed to feel the pain of your absence — it had been too long. I cannot outrun or avoid the grief from losing you. If ignored, the pain will fester. So I will not ignore you again.

I love you forever,
Your big sister

I no longer have a big brother. He’s the one who sang to me as a baby so I wouldn’t cry, You are my Sunshine. The one who took care of me while mom was working, made sure I was safe, fed, and most importantly, happy. The one who could always make me laugh, even on the saddest days. He even named me!A piece of me died with him that day. It physically feels like a piece of my own self is gone, just not there anymore.

The two of us have gone through so much together, side by side, holding each other up when we couldn’t stand alone.

People are blaming the traumatic brain injury he got 6 years prior to his suicide. How could it be? How could his wife not reach out to ANYONE and ask for help?

7 years ago. Seems like ages but at the same time seems just like yesterday. So much has happened since you decided to die. I drank so much and CW said he wished he could tell you that your choice is ruining the marriage. That was a shock to me to hear him say that. DW told me to stop drinking so now I have. You have no idea how much your decision has affected everyone in the family. Mom and Dad seem so old now. We should have been dealing with this together now its just me. We should have been talking and texting each other everyday but now there is no one. We should have grown old together but now there is no one. You left me an only child and it seems against nature. You have always been in my life except for the 2-1/2 years I was born before you and now the 7 years after. I still miss you with all my heart. I still ache. I push our childhood memories away because I dont want to think of what was. It just makes me miss you more. I hate September. DW says he missed you too. You were to be the Uncle and you just shoved that to the side. The cancer was treatable. You just never gave the Doctors a chance. I still wish you would have called me but I know why you didnt because I would have stopped you. I would have drove 100mph to get to you and stop you. You didnt want anyone to stop you. Your decision was made. I love you so much and miss you everyday. Sis

I woke up thinking of you today. With the help of my surviving siblings, I put together a collage of photo’s from your life and gave one to each member of our family. Mom really loved hers. It made her cry, but I know she loved it. The pictures I used were from different times in your life. The first picture ever taken of you in 1964. The last picture taken of you in 2024 at our brother’s poker game a few days before you passed. Mine is on the wall near my son’s memorial, and close to my recliner chair so I can see you both and talk to you. I’m looking at you as I write this.

Mom had a stroke a little while back. She survived and is now in a nursing home. Your sister-in-law and I will be moving back to my hometown next year to be closer to family and to spend as much time with mom before she passes.

Life is a pain at times. Yet, when I am outside walking the dog and the wind blows, I know you are there. When I am reeling in a Catfish at the lake, I believe you are there sitting beside me.

One of our older brothers had you cremated. He gave all of us a small Urn with your ashes.

One of your uncles has Cancer. The prognosis isn’t good.

All of us are now in our 60’s, and you would have been the last one to join that group this December. I became the youngest sibling when you passed.

The leaves are starting to fall from the trees. One of our childhood friends who lives further up north texted me the other day to let me know he is getting sick. If he or mom get there before I do, take care of them. Take care of our little sister. Take care of my son. Take care of yourself. Until we meet again.

It’s been nearly 6 years since my brother decided to leave us. To leave us in a way we still to this day cannot understand. Since that fateful day I replay the days leading up to it. I question, I overthink and over analyse every small detail in my mind. I miss him terribly. We all do. My poor parents…

Recently I’ve become consumed with anger towards him which leads me into a spiral of guilt and emotion I haven’t felt before. I’m angry because I feel cheated. Cheated in a way where I feel like I’ve not only lost my only sibling but also our mum. She’s become withdrawn, she’s isolated herself and become volatile. She was always the life and soul of any social situation, now she hardly leaves her house. And I feel like I’ve lost her too.
I don’t want to be angry and feel this way. I just can’t shake it. I love my mum and dad terribly and wish things could be different .

Today, tonight a year ago was my little brother’s last day alive… July 27th, 2023, I was woken up to a call at 9 am from our big sister that my brother hung himself. He used two ropes… no sign of struggle. No note…. I remember the instant feeling of despair. Our family isn’t the same without him. His gf told him he’s a deadbeat dad. And he wasn’t. It’s all just so ugly and unfair and messed up. There’s so much to it. He barely turned 24 June 3rd 2023. Now I’m awake and I can’t sleep because of the wide range of complications now that he’s gone. How will we prove to our little baby nephew his dad loved him? She’s already moving on and there’s so much hurt and a sense of betrayal. And I just wish I could die too. But I can’t. I have a daughter and a husband… I’m sick in my soul and nothing could make me feel better. His goofy faces and laughs. His sweet sensitive personality… he already felt like a failure for so many financial reasons. I remember him the last month looking so defeated all the time. His sadness, stress, and hopelessness came out in the form of anger because let’s face it, a man doesn’t like to feel weak or let people see him cry, so it’s easier to be angry. But an angry man is a depressed man. He lost so much weight. He withdrew from everyone. I wish we could have seen it happening. And I lived so far away…. I feel like I failed him. Because when he’d visit me and my husband I noticed the hope and the light and energy return to his eyes, like yeah, you know what your right. I can do this – it’s just baby steps. Then he’d go back home, to that environment…