“The Button”

I remember reading a story a few months after my brother past. I believe it was written by a mother who lost her son. In the story that she wrote, she talked about how she wished she could have a button, you know like one of those that parents wear with their kids sports picture in it, she wished she could have one that said “ My son just died”.

In this last year I have on many occasions wish I could have a button that said “My brother died”. I wish I could have that button so I don’t  have to explain to friends why all the sudden my mood had changed. Why I had gone from just enjoying a happy moment to being sad or withdrawn. I wish I could say “I was happy, I was enjoying that moment but then grief came in and said: you know your brother would love this” the thing is I don’t want to explain it, but I wanted an explanation. At times I’d also like to have a button that says “ my brother died” because I’d like to just scream it sometimes. I want and need people to remember that “ hey this happened to me” and “Hey I still need you to check in on me, even though I’m not always going to reach out to you, I need you to reach out to me”. Because I don’t want to have to continuously burden the people I am with with the whole “ my brother is dead” story and I don’t want my friends and loved ones to have to carry that weight too. After all it isn’t their life that changed. So why should they have to be burdened with that. But I still have this human need that’s in side me and it’s saying: “ hey y’all, I know it’s been 3 months, 6 months, a year, but this still HURTS, and I’m still not ok!”

This doesn’t mean I don’t have amazing friends, because I do. My support group, though it may be small, is seriously the best and they have saved me more times than they probably know this last year. But there is just something you go through, something people who haven’t gone through it don’t understand 100%. It’s not something you want them to understand 100% because that would mean that they have had to go through what you did, and you don’t wish that on anyone.

 But you still want that button. You still want that sign, shirt, billboard, whatever. Just an advertisement of “ Hey I’ve gone through this, and I’m still not ok”.  But in small print you’d like it to say “ so if I’m sad or withdrawn out of the blue, just know I’ll pull myself out of it, I’m just gonna need a moment”

All this to say I’d also hate having a button. See that’s the funny thing about grief. You want it to be known, and on the other hand you don’t want it to be known. I miss my brother every second of everyday. But that is exhausting, it comes at a price. So yeah sometimes I wish I didn’t have a button, I wish not everyone knew about it. I wish that look In peoples eyes when they hear about it or realize
I’m “ that girl who’s brother committed suicide” wasn’t there. Because it’s exhausting and while
I would never wish my brother never existed, while I would go through life with him as a sibling all over again just for the same result, and while I would still never erase him. I wish I could erase his death, I wish I could erase the pain, I wish I could erase the sadness, and heartache that comes with knowing and loving him. But that’s the bitterly funny thing about life. You can’t erase the death of a loved one without erasing knowing and loving them.

So we suffer through the grief and I mean WE SUFFER. Probably more than anyone realizes. And we live with the tug of war inside us that wants the button and doesn’t want the button. We put on our smiles in front of loved ones and even when deep down we feel this ache of sadness come over us out of no where, we still keep that smile on our face. Because we don’t have a button. We don’t have an advertisement. We just have this invisible war going on inside us that we fight alone and try to have the happiness win over the sadness. Sometimes it works, while most times it doesn’t. The times that it doesn’t we just have to remember that “We are suffering deeply because we loved deeply”