Member-only story
Struggling With Loss
Two deaths in two months
I saw the colour fall from his face like leaves from a tree in autumn. He had been pale even before he died, but this was different. Still, his arm felt warm beneath my touch, and if I had not watched his breathing cease and his chest fail to rise, I might not have believed it.
Witnessing my brother’s death was powerful and poignant. It was both a gift and a sword through the heart to be present. I had watched my mother die more than three decades before, but that had been different. She had been unaware of who or where she was for some time; the hospital staff had warned us it would be soon, and so we took up our vigil at her side.
My brother’s death was an invitation-only event. Three of us were there; we laughed, we cried, we held hands and bore witness to the moment he left his unwanted body behind. We imagined his spirit soaring to a new place that would be pain-free and where he would have peace.
Five weeks before this, my son had died by suicide. In the days between these two deaths and the ones that have followed, sleep evades me. It is an elusive shadow that I try to catch when I go to bed. Sometimes it runs from me until five in the morning, and I close my eyes for a few hours. That has to last me until the next night, when I hope I will be allowed to fall early into a deep…
