Facing Depression and Anxiety with My Brother

After our father’s death, my brother and I were forced to confront our shared mental illnesses.

“I just told mom. I told her everything.”

My brother Eddie walked up from the basement after talking to my mom for about an hour. I had watched an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race to give them time alone because they hadn’t seen each other in person in months. Plus, I knew the weight of the conversation, and it was something he needed to tell her since last year.

Part of me was proud of him for finally telling her. The other part of me, who knows how difficult it is for our Korean mother to show emotion, was nervous.

We just had an amazing few days together at my house, celebrating my daughter’s fourth birthday and my brother’s forty-first birthday.

We laughed more in two days than we had in years.

We bonded over crab cakes and kimchi.

We cried over a box of my dead father’s old yearbooks and photos.

We were a family.

And now I didn’t know how my mom would react to what he told her.

“Let’s go talk to her together.”