I grew up with one brother, Jason, and one sister, Christie, five and four years older than me respectively.
We also have another brother, Michael, on our dad’s side, who is a year and a half older than my brother Jason.
Michael, Christie, and I only recently started building a relationship as siblings. It’s complicated. If you haven’t read the history and would like to, you can learn more about that here.
Last year, National Siblings Day was the first one that I had no brother to text and tell him I loved him. In 2023, with our still-new connection to Michael, I have both a brother and sister to text, but the missing brother still feels like a ton of bricks sitting in my throat.
Jason belongs here, with us, so we can exchange texts or phone calls (he almost always called me when I texted him instead of texting back — he hated texting).
I honestly don’t know if my sister and I even acknowledged Siblings Day 2022 with each other. That whole year still feels like a big blur in so many ways.
When one of you is missing, special days don’t hit the same. We spent our whole lives as three, and nothing will ever be the same, or okay, without the oldest of our three.
I am so disgustingly grateful to have my sister. She carries pieces of me that no other person on this planet does now. A history and shared life that no one else can claim.
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t thank God for her.
And I am so happy to be taking the steps to get to know my brother Michael better after all these years.
But there’s also not a day that goes by that my guts aren’t still in knots over my brother Jason not being here. It’s still like a hot iron on my skin, especially on days like today.
Jason and I would not have been likely to see each other on this day, and Christie and I both have to work today, so we won’t see each other either, but the possibility is there, and that is everything. If I decided to blow off work and blaze over to her neck of the woods (two and a half hours from me), I could do that, and she would be there.
If I want to see Jason today, the only option I have is visiting his grave, and while his headstone is admittedly beautiful, it’s not exactly able to give hugs like he used to, is it?
This August will mark two years without him, and I still can’t believe it. It still feels surreal and impossible. I’m not sure it will ever feel any different, but I suppose time will tell.
I am planning a trip to California, where Michael lives, for the summer while my youngest is out of school. If my brother’s death taught me anything, it was that we shouldn’t waste time. That we should act on the things that we know are right, and we should do everything we can to live our life to the fullest, to prioritize our people.
We moved away from California when Jason was thirteen, and he never got to go back in all the years since.
I have only been back once myself, when our aunt died in 2015. My sister and I drove all the way there, partly because it was a last-minute thing, and getting a flight would have been impossible, and partly because I am horribly terrified of flying.
This summer, I am going to make a trip for a good reason, not because someone is sick, dying, or has died.
And I am going to fly, no matter how much that scares me, saving all the time I can to spend at my destination, rather than on the trip itself.
I am going to go and spend time with my brother Michael and my special cousins (his other siblings — again, if you want to read more on that, click here), and I am going to take Jason with me the only way I can.
He never leaves my thoughts or my heart, and I will show him all the places he should have been able to return and see.
I will make the trip for me. And I will make the trip for him.
I love you forever, Bubba. I miss you always. Happy National Siblings Day. ❤ ❤❤
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: Melissa Gray(Author)
