My brother, my hero, my B

I started this blog in the wake of my brother's death. I promised I would one day use it to tell his story to the world. But I can't seem to bring myself to talk about him just yet. It's a wound that's still bleeding, an ache that cuts into my heart with every inhale, because each breath is one more moment he doesn't get.

And still I waiver, still I find difficulty typing the words that changed my life irrevocably. When my brother died, my life was shattered, and I still can't seem to sort it out. It's been 6 months since I last spoke to B. The last words he said to me were the last words everyone wants to hear. I love you. I've spent the last 6 months struggling under the weight of all the days left in my life without him. We told each other we were twins born 1.5 years apart, that all we had was each other. And now he's gone.

Bryan died 2 weeks before Rise Against's new album, Endgame, was released. He will never hear this song, never know how much it speaks to our intense connection. The awful, fucked up circumstances of our lives and traumas were what we were born into. We didn't choose or ask to be this way. And yet over and over again we are judged and punished by those who will never know the pain we've known, never understand the daily struggle just to keep breathing, never appreciate our resiliency.

I am terrified to do this alone. But I will.

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to act in spite of fear.

Make it stop.
Let this end,
All these years pushed to the ledge.
But proud I stand
Of who I am
I plan to go on living.

- Michelle