There are days each year that trigger certain emotions. Birthdays are supposed to be joyous and sweet celebrations of life. A yearly reminder of how lucky you are to be alive and well, something so many of us take for granted. A chance to show off a bit and have the spotlight on you. Today should be one of those days but today’s birthday makes me somber. Today’s birthday is a yearly reminder of a life that was taken too soon. A life that meant the world to me. A life that I’ll never see again.
On October 27, 2014 I lost my cousin to a drunk driving accident and to this day I still don’t know the specific details of his death. He was only 26 years old and had two kids under the age of 8. I think to lose any person you love is hard but when it’s unexpected and without explaination it nearly makes living impossible without pain.
Losing my cousin was single handedly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to live through. To mourn someone so close to me and still stay strong for those I loved. Natually feeling the duty to step up and take charge, I called in some favors for the funeral arrangements, I picked up family from the airport, I stood at my aunts beckon call from sun up to sun down and I used every excuse in the world to be numb during that time. For weeks on end I was unable to catch my breath at night, as if my lungs and heart had collapsed inside of my body. My anxiety was so high that my husband had to squeeze me to sleep every night, something so uncharacteristic for my free spirited sleeping habits. I knew from the very first night I tried to sleep after I lost him that my life would not be the same. A thought that has haunted my existence ever since.
Grief is not a feeling, grief is a verb. An action of heartache and misery that can take your mind to the darkest place and live there for years. Mikey’s death triggered every ounce of angst that crowded my heart for years on end. The hardest part wasn’t losing him, it was living every day after without him. There was a piece of my childhood that died with him in that car that early morning, a piece of my childhood that I will never get back. I felt as if my innocence was stripped from me just as his life was stripped from him. I was pissed at the world with no remorse for my actions. I didn’t f*cking care.
A year passed and I found myself so deep in my depression that it turned me to a nervous breakdown. I had suffered some trauma earlier in my life that had crept up behind me with no sympathy, no remorse, and no compassion at all. I turned to every vice I could to suppress my emotions but nothing could fill the empty hole in my heart. I became a horrible person, let alone wife and mom.
It takes some serious truth and understanding to recognize when you’re severely depressed. Grief had taken me so deep underwater I was drowning without recognition. My heart had became cold and my emotions suppressed, I was completely numb. It wasn’t until my nervous breakdown in November, 2015 that my boss suggested counseling. An act of compassion that I will forever be grateful for. She diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which had ultimately triggered my downward spiral. Something I lived with for years prior to Mike’s death that exploded after his passing. My mind had been accustomed to sugar coating the problems around me and I had pushed every relationship I had so far away they lost hope in me. I lost hope in me.
As each year passes and seasons change my heart still feels empty. Every so often my emotions get the best of me and I cower into a ball in a corner, far away from society. Time doesn’t heal all wounds but time helps acceptance. I’ve accepted that I’ll never feel the same. I’ve accepted that I’ll never know how my cousin passed. I’ve accepted my childhood that is now gone. I’ve accepted my life without my cousin, as hard as that may be.
At the end of the day all I can do is love the life he lived and love the life I had with him. Everyday isn’t easy but time has given me acceptance. It’s not easy to live with grief but it’s not impossible. I want my life now to reflect the struggles I had at that time. Raw, unexcused, emotional depression. I’m not afraid of those emotions anymore, I face them without fear.
Happy birthday my beautiful cousin. Thank you for giving me the life you did and the strength to move forward. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you, your spirit, your laugh, and your God awful jokes.
Until we meet again, I love you.
