On May 22nd, my 30 year old brother died unexpectedly. It was a pulmonary embolism.
For almost a year preceeding his death, he'd been in crisis due to mental health and addiction problems. On the day he died, we thought we stood a chance of getting him back, but of course now we'll never know how his life might have turned out.
His memorial service was yesterday. My sister and I are really close and we got each other through it. This has been dark, messy, dirty grief - the kind you don't even know how to talk about.
After the memorial, we drove off as fast as we could to a secret beach on Deer Isle, Maine and we dove into the freezing cold water. We jokingly referred to it as a ritual cleansing. The water was so cold that it hurt to go under. But I made myself do it and when I came out, I felt wide awake. My skin tingled and my lungs filled with air and my toes were deep in sea weed and I looked up at the sun. Some mist was rising off the water and we watched the wind blow it out to sea.
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