Today is my brother’s birthday. He would be 60 years old. He died almost eight years ago of cancer, a fact that even now leaves me stunned and disbelieving. For a long time, I felt guilty that I was still here enjoying life, having so many experiences while he was gone. It seemed unfair, unjust, threatening. I don’t feel that way so much any more. I just miss him with an intensity that hasn’t diminished over the last 8 and 1/2 years. There are still moments when, without warning, I am suddenly overcome with an incredible longing just to see him one more time, healthy and whole and laughing, to know that he is happy and safe—a peaceful soul.
Losing a sibling is like losing a treasured cache of memories and knowing that you can never get them back. My childhood, my parents, all those years of growing up beside each other in our house in Yeadon seem vaguer to me now that Max isn’t here to help me remember them. Who knows what stories and people I’ve forgotten or misplaced from that past. Max is the only one who could help me get them back.
I’m lucky to be a mother, a wife, an aunt and a friend, surrounded by love, but it still feels very lonely to be an only child without my brother.
Happy Birthday, Max.
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