"may angels lead you in"

Losing a special person from your life is not easy...no one ever said it was. Most of you have gone through it, I'm sure. Losing anyone is tough, but from my personal experiences losing a sibling is one of the toughest life changing experiences ever. 13 years ago I was a little 12 year old boy in sixth grade living a 12 year old life with a great family, mom, dad, and my 16 year old brother, all under a stable roof and pretty good food on the table. It never ever occurred to me that anyone in my family could die at that age. I remember the day so vividly, and since then on June 4th, 1997 my life took a huge turn. Since that day, I've had so many questions that continued to snowball and some that fizzled on their own. Its a really tough change going from the baby kid in the family with an awesome older brother, to being the only child. I know that I've had a positive outcome from this event, which is hard to even think that something positive could come from something so terrible, but I know that it makes me stronger a person today.

This isn't something I bring up on everyday conversation when people ask me if I have any brothers or sisters. It has occurred a lot especially since starting rotations that acquaintances had asked me, and I would reply that I am an only child.  It's not that I am ashamed of what happened, but I don't think that those were the right circumstances to share this information with people I hardly care much about. It's a difficult topic to bring up, and when it does come up in a sibling conversation, it always ends in an awkward silence.  I guess that’s the nature of the beast though.  Anyways I know personally around the holidays time it affects me a lot.  Recently I have seen my mood go up and down, and my emotions doing the same.  It's tough, because no one around you really truly understands; i mean i don't even understand sometimes.  I remember having recurrent dreams of him being alive still, and just ran off elsewhere to return years later; definitely one of the stages of grief (denial).  Those dreams have stopped for a while, but I still do feel emotional consequences.  I have a great group of friends, and great parents who help keep me stable, but I really truly believe that my own willpower helps a lot too.

I remember my brother when he was 16 and I was 12.  If I do ever see him again (after i die, I assume), I truly believe I'm going to be an old fart and he is still going to be 16, which is quite disturbing since I'm supposed to be the younger brother, not him.

Another thing I've noticed is that my memories around that time, both retro- and antero-grade, have seemed to hide somewhere else in my mind. I do remember though that he was a great brother, and I truly miss him.  It's tough from not even having to think about being alone, and doing things on your own (like helping out your parents when your older), to thinking about that all the time.  I do wish he was still here, but I know that I have to look beyond that and make due.

Today he would have been 30 years old. Happy birthday, Eric! One day we will meet again, and I know you are always looking out for me. I know that you would like me to do what i think is right and right to how I feel. I really would have been better off if you were here today, but unfortunately that’s not the case. So I will do me, and do what I think is best for me.

Happy birthday! RIP December 26, 1980 - June 4, 2007.