There are certain things that you cannot express; you can’t bear to put your emotions into words. You don’t know how… and you don’t really want to learn. There are going to be times in your life that you wont be able to escape this feeling, you can’t do anything about it. You’ll feel the worst pain in the entire world, just like me. You will feel your heart rip out of your chest and it will forever be gone. Someone or some moment will take it all away. I can still remember the salty tears running down my face, my swollen eyes swallowing me whole, the physical pain I felt when I got the text message.
My brother, Danny, was an alcoholic. He started in 8th grade and did not make it past the summer of senior year.
“I’m so sorry about Danny.” is what I read that Sunday morning. There was no moment for me to be confused because in a split second I knew exactly what had happened. I knew he was gone. I almost didn’t want to believe my thoughts so as I was almost choking on my tears I dialed my house number 3,000 miles away from home. “Mom…what happened to Danny?” I sobbed. “How could you not tell me?” I croaked hysterically. “Oh sweetie, I didn’t know what to do…we were going to wait until you got home in a few weeks.” She cried softly. “How could you not tell me that my own brother died? Are you insane?” I screamed. “I thought it would be too much for you to handle alone all the way across the country! How did you even find out?” My mom said frantically. “Maggie texted me…how did this happen?” “We found him on the bathroom floor, he took too many pills last night, baby. There was also a broken bottle of liquor next to him. There was nothing left inside it.” She sniffled. “How—did this all…happen?” I hiccupped between words. “This is all my fault. If I was home right now, he wouldn’t have done something so stupid!” I cried angrily. “Baby, that isn’t true. We knew this was going to happen. There was nothing any of us could have done. But I knew that he was so proud of you sweetheart. He told me every day. How happy he was that you were out in California, working, at such a young age. He told me that he wished he had his life together like you do, and maybe then he would have been okay.” She cried. “He’s gone.” I sobbed. I could feel my head start to heat up, I had the worst headache, it felt like someone has just rammed a massive truck into me, I was out of control and there was nothing I could do about it. This didn’t matter though…the last thing I was thinking about was how badly I needed Tylenol.

"I left a dress for the funeral draped over your desk chair," my mom said. I hadn't realized I totally zoned out, fork in the air and all. I nodded at her while chewing on my lukewarm food. I had been zoning out for the past 10 minutes. I knew that because I only had an hour to get ready. The funeral started at noon but since we were family, we had to get there around 10. I had been up since 4am, not able to sleep, thinking constantly about the fact that this wasn’t a dream and my brother’s funeral was the next morning. I kept replaying the moment that I found out over and over again. All the times Danny has his relapses, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. I didn’t cry anymore though. I didn’t let myself. That feeling was gone.

I know now why my brother was the way he was. He would always talk about how he wasn’t meant to be in this decade. “I should be on tour with the Beatles right now” he would always joke. He wanted to travel the world, his dream was to be someone great, but he never believed in himself, he never tried. He never felt good enough. But these are things that I could never tell someone. There are certain things that you cannot express; I can’t bear to put his emotions into words. I don’t know how… yet I don’t really want to learn.