One year.

Twelve months. Fifty-two weeks. Three hundred and sixty-five days since my little brother left this world, and somehow it still doesn’t feel real.

People say that time heals. I don’t know if that’s true. What I do know is that time teaches you how to carry heartbreak. It teaches you how to get up, go to work, smile, answer questions, and move through life while carrying a pain that never truly leaves.

Losing my brother has been the biggest heartbreak of my life.

I’ve dealt with death before. I’ve lost my dad. I’ve lost my grandparents. I’ve experienced the sadness, the funerals, the difficult goodbyes, and the empty spaces left behind by people you love.

But this loss has been different. This loss has shaken me to my core in a way that none of those losses ever did.

Maybe it’s because he was my little brother. Maybe it’s because he was only 41. Maybe it’s because his death feels so unfair and so wrong. Whatever the reason, there is a part of me that feels permanently changed by losing him.

There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about him.

Sometimes it’s a memory that makes me smile. Sometimes it’s a picture, or a random thought that catches me off guard. Other times it’s the painful realization that he’s gone and that I can never text him or hear his voice again.

The grief is always there. Some days it’s quieter than others, but it’s always there.

One of the hardest things to live with is the guilt.

The endless questions that circle through my mind.

Could I have done more? Could I have helped in some way that would have changed the outcome?

I know those questions don’t have answers, but that doesn’t stop me from asking them.

And then there is the anger.

The anger that life can be so unfair.

The anger that there are people in this world who hurt others, who waste their lives, who seem to leave destruction wherever they go, and yet they continue on. Meanwhile, my brother, with so much life still ahead of him, was taken at just 41 years old.

It feels impossibly young because it was.

He was supposed to have more time.

He was supposed to have more birthdays, more memories, more experiences, more life.

He was supposed to be here.

Most days, I function well enough. Life has a way of keeping us busy. There is work, family, responsibilities, errands, and a thousand little distractions that fill the hours.

But grief is patient.

It waits until the day is over.

It waits until the house is quiet.

It waits until there is nothing left to focus on except your own thoughts.

And that’s when I miss him the most.

When it’s finally time to shut off my brain at night, the tears still come.

A year later, they still come.

Sometimes I wonder if talking to someone would help me process everything that I’ve been carrying. But even then, I don’t know how I would explain it.

I don’t know how to put into words how deeply this continues to hurt.

How do you explain what it feels like to lose someone who was supposed to be part of your entire life?

How do you explain the guilt, the anger, the sadness, that all exist together?

The truth is, I’m not sure I can.

What hurts most isn’t just losing the person he was. It’s losing all the years we were supposed to have.

We were supposed to grow old together.

We were supposed to be the siblings who shared family milestones, laughed about childhood memories, and complained about getting older. We were supposed to be there for each other through all of life’s chapters.

I was supposed to watch him turn 50, then 60, then 70.

That was the future I always imagined.

And that future was never supposed to be taken away.

As painful as this anniversary is, I don’t want today to be only about loss. It’s also about love.

Because grief exists only where love existed first.

My brother was loved.

He is loved.

A year may have passed, but that hasn’t changed. I carry him with me every day. In my thoughts, in my memories, in my tears, and in the quiet moments when I wish more than anything that he were still here.

One year without him feels impossible.

And yet somehow I’ve survived it.

Not because I’ve moved on, but because I’ve learned that loving someone doesn’t stop when they’re gone.

❤️