My older brother, Kirk passed away in a freak accident at the age of 29, three days after my own birthday. I was 8 weeks postpartum with my first child and emotionally I crumbled.  As tragic as it was and as much as I missed him I felt sorrier for my parents than I ever did for myself. I am just the sibling. Feeling this way was and is made easier by the fact that others, our friends and family, also focus on the sadness and grief that my mom and dad must be feeling. While I logically know that I was so wrong with this thinking, I still get caught in it almost two years later.

“The loss of a loved one is one of the most tragic and devastating things a person could endure”.

I still wake in the middle of the night, replaying random conversations with my brother.  Replaying the day my father called to tell me what had happened.  Replaying the moment I walked into my parent’s house on the day he died.  Replaying our private visitation at the funeral house.  Replaying the days and weeks that followed his funeral.  Each time, it is as if I have just lost him all over again. It has been 2 years and yet I struggle to find the right words that properly encompass all of my thoughts and emotions.

As I sit here typing, I am a week away from turning 30.  A week away from reaching an age that my brother never got the chance to reach.  Unlike many who feel like their 30th birthday is the end of their youth and the beginning of being “old”, I in contrast feel like I am still so very, very young. At the age of thirty, I still have so much life ahead of me to be lived. So much life that my brother will never get to have.

“When a parent dies, you lose the past. When a child dies, you lose the future. When a sibling dies, you lose the past and the future”.

I am currently 37 weeks pregnant with my second child.  A child that my brother will never hold. Never see smile or hear laugh. After turning 30, I will get to raise my children, perhaps even have a few more.  I will get to travel the world and to celebrate the different milestones of life.  I will be here as our parent’s grow old and I will one day become a grandparent myself.  The countless possibilities of what else I will experience over the rest of my life seem endless and without limit.  I am still angry that all of those things were robbed from Kirk.  I am still so angry that my children will never really get to know their Uncle Kirk. Pictures and stories will be all that they have. I am still so angry. Still so sad.

My grieving process is still very much a process.  I would be lying if I said that I was anywhere close to being “over it”. Every new step in my life- having another child, celebrating birthdays, buying new homes is another part of my life that he will be absent from. So while I celebrate turning 30, I also grieve that I will be older than my older brother ever got to be.