Eight Wheels

Kobi,

Today, I put skates on for the first time in almost 2 years. I skated around with your nieces, often with tears running down my cheeks. It was impossible not to see you skating around with them. Watching the pride on your face as they master a few strides without losing their balance, seeing you pick them up and fly around like you were some kind of super hero. You amazed me. You taught Abby how to skate, and while you worked with the twins too, it's been a while and they were young. I'm going to have to teach them all over again, and I know I'll never do as good of a job as you did.

Lately, I feel like the floor is falling out from beneath me. The efforts I've been putting into keeping it together and shoving all my feelings down, seem to be spilling out the top and into everything I do. Some days it feels like I have concrete blocks on my feet and it takes all my effort to lift each foot and place it in the correct place and direction I'm suppose to be going. My grief isn't letting up, and I feel like the waves are just going to consume me some days. Thoughts of you and the horribleness of it all consume me daily. I just can't break away from the undertow.

It's especially hard as we near another holiday season, the first anniversary of losing grandma, and the day we lost Dad. I'm constantly telling myself to just keep going. It's not a very pleasant way to live. Although, I've found few things that are pleasant since we lost you. I'm trying my best.

I love you so very, very much. I miss you.

Love,

Sissy

Maybe, Tennesee

Kobi,

Today, I'm thinking back to the trip we took to Tennessee together. It was the last time we ever stepped foot in that house. It was shortly after Dad had died and we wanted to see our family members. We wanted to feel close to Dad. You were still in college and I had a break from school, it was perfect timing.

We drove 8 and a half hours together in the car, both ways. I loved every second of it. We joked, we laughed, we sang at the top of our lungs to "99 Red Balloons," and when we left, we cried. I'm so grateful for that trip we took. Even though being there without Dad was hard, and everything was so messed up in our lives, I'm so glad we spent that time together.

Life is so very weird. You don't think that a trip to see family that lives far away isn't going to be remembered for the time you had there, but for the time you had getting and coming home. I couldn't tell you what we talked about at my Grandmother's house, or what food was cooked for Thanksgiving, but I can tell you some of the songs we sang, how we both banged on the dashboard pretending to drum and how much we laughed over how frequently we both had to pee.

Until a couple days ago, I forgot we had even taken the trip. We were talking about traveling to Georgia for Thanksgiving and it suddenly brought those memories up. I love when I'm reminded of the things we did together. It's still so incredibly hard for me to believe that you are gone. It's even harder for me to wrap my mind around how it happened.

I wouldn't give these memories away for less pain. But I wish I could keep both the memories and you.

I love you so very much.

Sis

Evidence Tape

It's not something that most normal people even know about. It's something I wish I didn't know about. It's not some complicated thing, it's just a piece of tape that says, "Evidence" on it. Sounds basic, right? When you are the family member of a homicide victim, it's anything but basic, and tonight, it's all I can think of.

I should be sleeping, studying or doing a million other things, but I can't stop thinking about the evidence tape. Those boxes taped closed with that red, haunting tape. They use it to close the boxes that enclose evidence and personal items from your deceased family member. It's the items they keep for months looking over before they are finally returned to you. It's just one more thing that is drug out and makes recovering from a homicide that much harder.

It's been a year now since I received those ugly brown boxes with the red tape, granted, it wasn't as difficult as the blood splattered items I received a few months before them, but we'll save that terrible memory for another time. Those boxes held items my brother used on a regular basis. An iPad, computer, camera, and several other things. It also contained his old cell phone, the one he broke and I was suppose to send back to the phone company to replace. He had an alarm set to remind him that he had skate practice, and that "Rebels" alarm would pop up from time to time. It was another painful reminder that he wasn't where he was suppose to be.

Maybe that's what is more haunting than anything tonight. He's not where he's suppose to be. He's in a coffin in the middle of nowhere. He isn't on the phone with me right now. He isn't at practice or in bed. He isn't going to be here this weekend to see his nieces turn 6. It's so hard to think about how different they were the last time he was at their birthday. It makes me physically sick to my stomach.

This will be the first time we've been back to Escapades since his passing. He loved putting on his knee and elbow pads and climbing through the tubes with the girls. They adored it. They adore him.

This never gets easier. I just miss him more and more.

Jealousy

Some days are easier than others. Some days I can be overwhelmingly happy for the people in my life and on Facebook, who have 2 siblings, both their parents, or maybe at least a grandparent left. Unfortunately, this isn't the case for me. I see articles being posted about how great it is to have grandparents living close by for your kids, or how your brother is always there for you, and I'm irrationally angry. I am not angry at you, I'm angry at my situation. I'm angry at the life that I've been given, the hand I've been dealt.

Growing up, I had a set of grandparents who lived very far away, but we spent every summer there and they were very active in our lives. I had 2 sets of grandparents who lived within 15 minutes of where I grew up. I had more cousins, and uncles/aunts than most people I knew.

People grow up and they go their own ways, and that part I understand. But in a span of 5 years, I lost 3 of the grandparents who lived closest to me. I lost my Father when I was 13 years old. He lost his battle with depression and it ultimately ended his life. It was a terrible and miserable time for me, and our family. It's one of those things that you don't know how to get through but one day you're just looking back at it all finally on the other side of a very dark tunnel. So by the very young age of 22, I had lost my 3 grandparents, and a parent. I wish that my unfortunate times stopped there.

Even with all that loss, I still felt like I was doing okay. I felt like I could get through anything life threw at me, because I had my brother. He made it so I never felt like I was missing anything. The amount of love he gave me was so incredibly big that I felt like I would be okay. Then I awoke one morning, to the devastating news that he had been murdered. Not even 8 months later, the only grandparent we had left, lost her battle to cancer.

My Mother spends at least 8 months out of the year 16 hours away. So while it's better when she's home, that isn't always the case. Somedays, I've never felt so alone in my life. No, I'm not really alone, I have an amazing husband and 4 awesome kids, but it isn't the same thing. It still feels hard, existing without the family you came from. Those people who know your stories, who know what you were like when you were a kid. The people who remember that you had crazy blonde hair and freckles during the summer time.

I think what's even harder for me, is knowing my kids won't have family around while they grow up. I just hope that we can love them big enough, like my brother loved me, that they never feel like they are missing anything. We've been fortunate enough to have friends we consider family in their lives. I can't even begin to explain how grateful we are to have them around. I hope everyday that it helps fill in the gaps with their unwavering love and support.

So yes, some days I'm going to be a little angry when I see those people and things you get to experience and have for a lot longer than me. I try very hard to be insanely happy for you and smile with you that you are able to have those things. But sometimes, jealousy rears its ugly head and makes me feel sorry for myself, and my kids, and all that we are missing out on. I'll apologize again and again for the way I feel, but please understand, I would give anything to be able to feel differently, to have the privileges that allowed me that.

Love each other, with all your heart, with everything you have, and appreciate every moment. 💗

My Busy Head

Kobi,

A few people have asked me why I started working again. It's not like we hadn't already been living on one income for years and managed, or that I didn't have anything going on. With 4 kids, and school, life was already pretty busy. However, it didn't keep my head busy enough. When I was done with school there was still a little bit of down time mentally. Or I should say, time to dwell on everything that has happened over the past 16 months.

It's easy to think about the trauma and the horribleness of it all when I'm folding laundry or loading a dishwasher. It's a lot harder to think about those things when I'm working with patients or learning.  Too often, my mind still goes to that place where I think about you bleeding out behind your building, or that you are laying in a coffin where I'll never be able to see or touch you ever again. Way too often my mind is still in that place where I can't see past what has happened to you to even get through the day without breaking down. I still feel that weight in the evenings when I would spend hours on the phone with you, and now, it's just filled with my own thoughts and things I have to do and work through without your guidance.

Thankfully, the past few weeks since working has helped give me some things to focus on outside of that. No, it hasn't been perfect, and honestly it's been a really tough few weeks getting into a schedule, trying to succeed in my classes still and helping the girls adjust to our new found crazy. It's all been hard. But it's been hard in a very different way. Stressful? Absolutely! But compared to what I've been through, manageable.

And while it's helped, right now, I'm feeling the weight of the world, the weight of your loss. My chest hurts, I feel like I might be sick and I want to do anything to stop the pain. I want to hear your voice again. Hear you laugh again. Hear you tell me you love me again. And I think more than anything right now, I need to hear you say, "Breathe with me. You've got this. You can do this!"


I miss and love you so very much, best friend.

Love always,

Sis

2 Very Unmerry Birthdays

Kobi,

This is the first time I’ve been sober for one of these. On August 14th of last year, I was drunk. On May 1st, of this year, I was drunk. This year, life is hurrying on with you. Everyone has their places to be. I can’t drink because I have to drive and I have no driver this year. I have children to get up at 5 am and get off to school. I have people relying on me. And even on the days I want to check out and just wallow in my grief, I’m held responsible for my kids.

How can you be gone when you are suppose to be celebrating your 33rd birthday? How can this be our life now?

Tonight, I’m painfully aware of how sober I am. And before you worry, I don’t have a drinking problem, I never have. In fact, a glass of wine will make me unable to walk a straight line, I’ve just had a horrible time coping with all of this. Alcohol made it a little easier. I’m suddenly sympathetic to every addict, to every broken human being just looking for a way to get through the black. I’m currently in the process of lowering the dosage on my medication. I’m trying to find my new normal and survive it. Whatever that is. I don’t like it. I don’t even want it. But I’ve never been the girl who stops riding her bike just because she fell down. I always get back up again. 

So my training wheels are coming off, and I have to learn how to balance this thing without you there, ready to catch me. It’s a scary thing, to be here without you. Who’s going to carry me when I fall down and skin my knee? Who’s going to love me through it? All of it? Some how, I know it will still be you. 

Love you and I’m missing you always. 

Still

Kobi,

This evening I sat on the floor, put my hand across your written words on my arm, tilted my head forward, and pretended you were sitting right there with me. Your head against mine, your hand in mine, the world still and quiet. I wanted to feel something, anything, that would tell me you are still here. I wanted to feel weight against my forehead, movement in my hand, the world spin. I really just needed that tonight. But my head was cold and unaccompanied, my hand empty, and my world, still as ever.

I feel you here with me all the time. But then I wonder if it's just my head trying to make my heart believe it. I wonder if that feeling in my stomach isn't your presence in my life, but in fact your absence. My grief plays with my head. It tries desperately to make sense of this life without you. There are times in your life where you are under an umbrella in the sun, and other times where you are in such a darkness that you need a flash light to see just a foot in front of your face. My head has no sun at the moment. It's rainy and dark. My family and friends are like stars in the sky shining down on me, but it feels so hard to reach them. So hard to explain the storm that's raging on behind my calm exterior.

No one knows just how much you meant to me, and I don't even know how to begin to describe it. You were my person. You could calm me like no one else. You were my perfect match in a friend and a sibling. You were everything to me and so much more. I love you with all that I am, and I miss you more every single day.

Sis