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Eight and Not Even 24 Hours

A Short Writing About Losing a Younger Sibling

By McKy SillitoePublished 5 years ago 6 min read
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Kaydon Delroy Sillitoe 3/19/08 - 3/20/16

The way the world rotates is a peculiar thing. Rotation isn’t even perfect, no. In fact, it lays tilted on its side like a sad blanket sealed over the arm of a chair that once belonged to your late loved one. This is factual, yet we question why. Why does it take the world 24 hours to complete a spin? Why are apartments called that when they are so clearly built together, and why… why do good people die?

How is the world’s rotation similar to death? One thing exactly is enough to answer a question such as that. Each day that goes by, we grow closer and closer to the reality that, with great function and life, comes death.

As morbid as that may seem, it's a truth that burns deeper than her soul when she’s told she can’t see him anymore.

I remember it like it was an hour ago. I was 15 years old in March. It was a warm year. Our almond tree began to blossom beautiful quarter-sized flowers, and hummingbirds fed on the sugar water and seed feeders we hung out back. I dressed myself in sleek navy shorts and a smile because today was the day I was going to ask my crush to meet me at the park so we could sit in the grass and tell each other about how many siblings we had and wonder why the bees whisper in our ears.

But today wasn’t like the others, because today my mother didn’t have the same rosiness in her cheeks, and her smile had run away to another town with all of its words in one bag because all she had left to say was, “Your brother died today.”

Today wasn’t like the others because my dad and I never talked on the phone. The only reason we ever did was so that he could hand the phone over to my brother because he wanted to talk to me because I was missed and today wasn’t his birthday, it was the day after… you see, my brother turned eight yesterday, and he was just getting excited to play with his new skateboard like the first time.

How does a young boy learn how to ride a skateboard? I know anytime I got on a skateboard, my legs would tremble beneath my torso because I feared the cold hard fall that came with the gravity of it all. This boy rode his skateboard the only way he knew how. To sit on it. How fun is it to hurl fast down a hillside like sledding when there isn’t any snow? To me, it was frightening; to him, it was a “winner takes all” charge into victory and the red ribbon was not exactly a ribbon, no. In fact… it was a red flag designed as a vehicle. Drugs are a terrible force in this world—and those who invite them can only attract pain.

The car was his opponent and he was only four feet tall. He was so small, in fact, how could it not pass him over? The race didn’t last long and it breaks my core to think about the little onlookers on the sidelines that lost with him. The onlookers, two younger than the included eight-year-old, were all my siblings.

Young Madi would discover herself instantly having terrible nightmares and she couldn’t decide if seeing Kaydon in her dreams was good or bad. Confusion would hit my younger brother Devin when he would say, “I saw Kaydon today, I really did.” And a wave of regret for believing in such pain overtook myself. My stepmother couldn’t keep him off her mind and my father had no more words left to say because anytime he’d open to speak, his sound would be drowned out with the silent sobs of loss.

My sister Kennedy remembers the funeral just as I did. Perhaps, her memories are much clearer than mine. Although she was a baby, she still enters my room three years down the road in tears because she remembers all the nights I’d be up deaf from the sound of my crying and the shower droning on and on about how, “NONE OF THIS CAN GET ANY BETTER.” One song stays stuck to the roof of my mouth from that day. In the back of my mind, the bitterness sings, “If they knew sweet little you, they’d end up loving you too.”

There’s no harder way to accept this fate than to watch someone you love disappear. He was down there and I, up here. It isn’t easy to walk this Earth without him because the memory of the chill of his barehand barely digs a big enough hole for me, too, to be buried beneath it. So how is the Earth as death? The Earth brings life and beauty. The sun brings warmth and tells us, “There’s still work to do.” And the moon hushes softly yet another, “You did it, bring on tomorrow.” Yet all this time, tomorrow may be the last time you or your loved ones will ever see the sun, or sleep every night to the same “hum” of the nighttime airplanes flying by. This would be one sleep that you won’t expect. Don’t believe that it can’t happen to you or anyone at any time or place. It's aligned in the stars.

I believe in life there is good. Honestly, the good was a tough place to find myself in for some time, but with great sorrow and melancholy there comes a lesson. The funny thing about life is that there is never losing… there’s just learning. My brother might have lost this race, but so long as I’m still in it, I know I will be able to push through it for him. It’s cliche to say that I believe that he will walk me through it, but love never dies. A big sister’s job is never done no matter the circumstances. My job is to love and nurture. And I do.

Yesterday I was blind to you with words I’ll never say, today I am inspired by your love and your need to spread it, and tomorrow I will become a better version of myself.

Goodbyes are never easy, but there is good somewhere at the end of it all. A legacy lives on when you tell it to, and a body may die, but who they were when they left never dies.

Carry on, remember, and pay life forward with compassion and kindness. We share this one world with each other—in our one life—make it count. Because you never know when the journey will end.

grief
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About the Creator

McKy Sillitoe

I enjoy being the imaginary voice in your head as you read my writings. The ability to enter the mind and transfer energy with words is a gift I've enjoyed most of my life.

Find out more about me on my social: Instagram - @mckyisart

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