Losing My Brother is Hard

Life won’t be the same without him

2 min readSep 28, 2022

Friends are saying I’m so sorry. I appreciate it, but at the same time I want to yell: NO, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND! MY BROTHER DIED! I LOVED HIM! Of course, what else can they say? None of us control death. If we live a long life, friends and relatives will pass through leaving us behind. I sometimes think they are the lucky ones.

Kenneth was born on August 21, 1954. I turned five years old on August 23. I expected his arrival judging by the size of my mother’s stomach. Mama told me the stork brought babies. I knew better.

After he came home, I desperately wanted to see him, but Mama said he was sleeping. Each day I asked if I could see the new baby, but got the same answer. I finally convinced grandma to bring him out while the neighborhood friends and I stood outside on the porch with our noses pressed against the bay window. I can picture the bundle of bald head clearly.

I can’t remember seeing him again until he was a year old. Throughout the years, Mama would comment that Kenneth didn’t turn over until he was eight months old. I believe it. We had a depressed mother with other mental illnesses. She never hugged or kissed us, she was violent and had daily meltdowns. That’s another story I prefer not to get into because this is about Kenneth.

I think he lay in his bed staring at blank walls for the first year of his life. Babies need love and stimulation for brain development. I’m surprised that any of us thrived and lived past infancy.

I had intended this post to be longer. However, it’s much too painful to continue. Seeing our loved ones pass is the price we pay for living a long life. Kenneth is being cremated as he wished; his ashes spread in three of his favorite places. It’s hard to fathom that a living breathing person in solid form can disappear completely in the wind.