On the Loss of My Beloved Big Brother

I feel you so constantly since your transformation, hovering around me; sharing with me, from your place behind the screens, all the tangible experiences of my continuation – smiling with me at an inside joke, hearing the phrases I speak into my still rooms, and seeing all the things I know. Even now, when we come close to the point where the globe will have made its full orbit, and arrived at that place, that portal through which you relieved yourself of life by your own hands, I can still quickly be reduced to tears. Some memory brings it on, or a song that I have known you to love, or the thought of something that you confided you yearned for but, alas, were never destined to have. There is no way for me to reconcile your loss.

As children we might have suspected that something compelling was upon us. While we talked and studied the overhead sequins from our veranda rails, we were so connected. We would later discern the way of the Divine; delicate and undetectable, like individual strands of hair, but part of the larger design still. Twenty years will come in just this same way and go, and I will be stunned to have survived it without your company; to not have succumbed to my initial instincts to follow you into the next realm – that is, if the universe even allows such longevity. For your leaving has convinced me that our time is as fragile as daylight, ready to be claimed by the slightest shadow, but unpredictable overall. Just look at our Grandmother, who, we were once both certain would light our way into the next world. She has lived three of your lifetimes and now doubles her prayers for you by the bed.