Josh goes to Heaven

Mom, I don't want to be strong for my older sister.  Not anymore than I want to be strong for myself, I want to feel it all.  I want to be let to feel it all with her, with me, with everything.  I don't really know why you told me to be strong for her today.  Perhaps you know it's my coping mechanism.  Perhaps you also told her to be strong for me today.  I know we need each other.  Perhaps you think she needs me more than I need her.  But we are both more sensitive than we allow.  I think that is due to the way and the circumstances that we were raised.  I miss her as much as I miss crying.  I miss her as much as I miss breaking down, tears. 

I sit writing this, gasping for breath, wiping the watery blur from my eyes.  I'm feeling.  And I'm feeling everything.  Just how cruel is this world and unjust.  A young but remarkable life lost.  A family, a son, a brother.  So young so innocent.  The tears sting and burn, they hurt.  But they also, with every stream, heal.  You can't take them back, just like time, you can't unredden your eyes, just like a memory.  But you can blink, squeeze tighter, lips quiver, breath deeper.

I'm going to hug you tighter.  In about two and a half hours.  I'm going to hug you so tight I mend the broken bits a little.  I'm going to hug you little sister.  Thought and understanding takes me back sixteen years or so... how I would love to have known then what I know now.  You became my sister by birth, but I didn't allow you to become my sister by bond.  Just how cruel is this world and unjust. Two young lives lost, by my own hand, to a distanced and disconnected resistance.  I simply cannot lose you any further.  You are still here and so am I.  I fear that should one of us go to heaven, we would not welcome the other without slight contempt.  Not because we want the other to live but rather because we would prefer to stay distanced and disconnected.  As it is all we've known, or shown, for the most part.  And for that, I am so deeply sorry.  I could enlighten you to my realisation that I had to grow up quick, with a sister already.  And when you came along I was already too far gone.  I was gone.  I was there but I didn't open up.  I was so consumed by being strong for my sister, my mom, my new dad, myself, I had no heart left for you to penetrate.  That heart only got harder.  Our relationship has only got harder.  With so much toughness there are no tears that sting and burn. With so much roughness there are no years young that bind. It was my wound I put outward and onto you, it has been my doing.  Or better, my not doing.  My not loving.  And for that, I am so deeply sorry.  I'm going to hug you harder,  it may hurt.  It may sting, but it's a wound that needs to burn so deep that it heals with new.  With future.  We have that, and the present.  So I'm going to hug you.  I hug you.  I love you.  You are my little sister.