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Hello, little blog.

I braved this place today....this place that was once full of happy pictures of my little family, a perfect record of our growth, our successes. Three very, very raw posts have changed this place for me.

It isn't easy, reading my words from those days. Remembering. It isn't quite that I have forgotten, but to read them, it puts me back. My pain one year later is different....a little less raw, but still there. I realize that this has a lot to do with the little pill I take now, daily. The one that lets me think a little more clearly and not get stuck in places I shouldn't be. The little pill that when the boys ask, I tell them it makes my heart happy. Because that is really what it does....it reminds my heart of all the good things I have, it allows me to think about and (try to) understand what happened, and overall, keeps me with my family. Because there were easily times a year ago, that I didn't think I could do it. Didn't think that I could brave a world without my brother, didn't think that I could bear the pain...times when it felt so easy to give into the black hole. I won't let it win, the depression and the grief that holds such power over me, and I am proud to tell anyone that compliments me on how well I am doing that I am not doing it alone. Support, in many ways, is getting me through.

I want to write again. I want to share the funny and crazy things that the boys do, write out the pain that I feel. But this place, it feels tainted. But at the same time, it is real....the emotions, the words, are real....and I need them. Will it be weird to start again? To mix the happy posts with the grief posts? Is that acceptable? Do I even need permission? After all, this is my space, my place. And above all....is anybody even still checking this?

Dreams

I'm not quite sure when it will stop feeling like a dream. When the feeling that I can pick up the phone and hear my brother's voice will stop. It gets me, often. I see things or hear things or take a picture that I want to show him, and for a split second, I almost do it. And then I remember. And then, without control, the movie starts.

From 4:30 pm on Thursday, December 12 that I got the call that his heart was de-satting and the doctors said to call the family, the movie runs through until I drove home around noon on Friday, December 13. My nightmare, flooding my head.

I still have his voicemails. I listen. "Hey Mag, it's your brother...." is how he starts every one. It's how we referred to ourselves and each other, 'your brother' 'your sister'. I am nobody's sister.

My heart hasn't felt this raw in a while. 6 weeks from the worst day of my entire life, and I will sit and countdown the minutes. I will drop Eddie off at school at 9:45, when doctors were rounding. I will countdown the minutes until 11:02 when they said the words I dreaded. I will remember everyone's face and their voices. My nightmare.

If I could call him, he would laugh at the outrageousness of it all. Would tell me that the chances were one in a million.

He truly was one in a million. My North Star. And I am so, so lost without him shining.

Reminders

Things have been good. I've been smiling genuinely and laughing with friends. Sometimes, I tell too many details and know that I've overwhelmed someone, but I'm working on it. Yesterday, though, it was bad. I had a great day, went into work for a couple hours and felt....normal. I didn't think about it. And then, at bed time with Finn, the dark enveloped me and my least favorite movie started. Last moments, last words. Images, non stop.

I fucking hate that movie.

Frankie finally relieved me from my dark little hole, and I went to watch some TV. My favorite show, Parenthood, was on. You see, in the opening episode of Parenthood they had a huge family dinner outside in their parent's backyard. It was beautiful....a table filled with parents and brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews. I always imagined us like that, eventually. So in the beginning of the episode the sister goes to talk to her brother, cries and tells secrets and he hugs and comforts her. I lost it. I'm not going to have that anymore. And while I know that, to SEE it, and to really imagine it being me and Mac, it was too much.

I stayed up until 1:00am, not willing to go to my dark bedroom. I read all of our old text messages, back to June. I listened to voicemails I saved on my phone. "Hi Mag, it's your brother!"....he opens every voicemail like that. They don't seem real, recordings of his voice. My eyes this morning are puffy and red and I have traces of mascara waterfalls still running down my face.

Is this normal? To have good days and bad? I mean, I think it is. But the hard days make the good days seem worse. I feel guilty for allowing myself to appear whole, when I'm really shattered. I'm so broken and lost. And the one person who would normally fix me is the only person that I can't have. And that in and of itself makes me feel guilty, since Mac wouldn't want me like this. He wouldn't want any of us feeling this hurt and lost. I have a lot to learn from him, still.

I wasn't done learning from him.