Everlasting

The sound of his retching weighs heavily on my heart as I patiently rub his back with my hand. These last few months, I feel as though we have all fallen into a horrible routine. Wake up, eat, go to work, watch as my loving brother drinks away more of his soul, and repeat. I try and be there for him, but there isn't anything that I can do that will make that raw pain go away.

His breathing ragged as he tries to withhold another onslaught of sobs. His beautiful doe brown eyes glisten like fresh dew that has settled on the grass in the morning sun. I imagine my own eyes aren't faring much better. But unlike those days when the sun shines bright and warms your skin, all we will see is a burning light that glares down upon us as if daring us to enjoy our day.

The dull ache sits in my stomach too, but I can't burden him any more than I could lay it on the kid's shoulders. A strong hand settles on my shoulder, and I realise that my brother had stopped being sick and had been trying to get my attention. I help him stand up from the bathroom floor and lead him down the hallway to the guestroom. His face masked with that same blank expression that has sat next to the kids for meals these last nine months.

I feel the air shift as my husband comes in behind us and helps me settle Dan into bed, leaving him in his well-worn jeans and flannel shirt. I gently push his brown curls off his face, just as I have done most nights since he moved in with us. I can see Michael's pinched face, and I lay a calming hand on his chest and lead him out to the kitchen.

"The kids are all in bed," he tells me with weary eyes. "Katie, we can't go on like this," He says after a pause.

"I know," I whisper back. Michael pulls me into his arms the same way he did at her funeral as I stood still staring at the flower arrangement.

Cassie would have loved the flowers that Dan chose. She truly loved carnations –always saying, "just you wait; when they are full-blown, they are a sight to see". The lightly tinged pink carnations that Dan decided upon embodied both his everlasting love and eternal grief. His sister-in-law and I couldn't refuse his only request for the funeral. With her parents passing two summers before, I offered to help organise the arrangements, much to Alice's relief. Alice's frazzled appearance and red-rimmed eyes spoke of her grief when the lump in her throat rendered her unable to utter a word. Her foundation was doing little to mask the dark circles under her eyes as we tirelessly planned a beautiful ceremony in the face of tragedy.

The third-party insurance covered the funeral expenses, for which I was grateful. Being so young, Cassie never thought of such things as funeral cover, and none of us was in a position to afford such a beautiful send-off as the one she got. Dan was never one to deal with finances, let alone after his beloved wife passed. I remember when the solicitor stated that Dan, being the next of kin, would receive the full amount of her savings. Dan had promptly walked out of the lawyers' office and punched a wall. I found him sitting against the wall cradling his hand, and sat down next to him.

No, Cassie had put aside the twenty thousand dollars in her savings to restore the old community centre she had bought a while ago. She was endlessly talking about renovating the kitchen. She never complained that the skirting boards were prehistoric and somehow didn't match the rest of the building or the kitchen's chipped backsplash. No instead, she would regale us with all the things she was going to do. Everything from new lighting to installing shiplap for her feature wall and the paint colours that she swore was a different shade to the roof. For someone so free-spirited, she took her project very seriously. She was often seen neatly writing all her ideas in her softcover little black book or fiddling with the elastic strap. Dan still keeps in on the bedside table. I've seen him running his fingers over the indents in the pages from her moments of inspiration that had made her usual flowing handwriting press into the page. I never figured out how she managed to plan the renovations whilst organising activities and different events for the older teens at the centre to get involved.

The connection they shared allowed Cassie to know just what to say to lift his spirits after a hard day at work. Or that prompted him to show up with flowers at the day-care without even knowing that she had had a rough morning chasing after a bunch of toddlers. No, as much as I wanted to help him, I couldn't be that for my brother. If only it were as easy as placing one of those silly cartoon band-aids on my son's knee after he fell over on the deck outside.

Memories flash through my mind as I vividly remember when the doctors came out with sympathy laced with exhaustion on their faces. Dan was livid. My husband was trying to calm him down as he looked ready to rip into the other driver. We heard the automatic doors open, which revealed a police officer who walked into the waiting room, followed by the other driver who was getting checked out and for mandatory blood testing.

Nineteen years old.

It was as if Dan deflated seeing the shaggy-haired kid with a shell-shocked demeanor, shivering in his university jumper. Silence threatened to overwhelm us. I believe that my brother wouldn't let himself unleash his anguish onto the boy who looked about as threatening as a kitten. The poor kids' eyes were blue pools of tears that were ready to follow the tracks that streamed down his pale face as they waited for his parents to come to join him. For all accounts, the kid appeared to have escaped with merely a broken arm and possible concussion if the heavily bleeding head wound was anything to go by. A horrible comparison to Cassie as the paramedics had rushed in with her.

I wince and shake my head to banish the cold dread that threatens to consume me. It took a long time, but I have started to see pieces of my brother come back to me. Dan requested we add peanut butter to the grocery list in stark contrast to the man who had been robotically eating whatever we put in front of him. He said,

'The world needs a few more nuts' the sardonic humour was accompanied by a quirk of his lips.

Emotion wells up in the corners of my eyes as I think of how proud I was after telling me he wanted to start a safe driving awareness program. I'll forever be grateful to Sam, who I commend for pulling my brother out of his head more often than not. Even though they no longer work for the same company, the two electricians have stayed in touch. Since Cassie passed, at least twice a week, I would see Sam at the house endlessly chattering in my brother's ear, seemingly never getting a response. Dan even recruited Sam and their other Tradie mates to fix Cassie's centre using her savings.

Whether or not he stays on at the centre after he finishes using the funds for the renovations or entrusts it to someone else, I know its a step in the right direction.

They say that time heals all wounds. I don't believe that. It may fade, but I don't think the grief can ever truly leave us. I join Daniel sitting on the steps out the front of the centre. Whilst not precisely happy, the satisfied expression on his face lets me know he is proud of continuing Cassie's dream. Grime and dirt layer his torn white shirt after all the hours spent knocking down one of the kitchen walls. By following Cassie's diagrams that she had sketched in her small notebook, he kept her memory with us. Dan leaned over and said,

"I am thankful for the pain, you know", and after a short pause, continued "because my grief is everlasting proof of our love."

As he gazes out from the front steps, I see his lips upturn just the smallest amount as he follows a little white butterfly with his eyes. I remember seeing Cassie mesmerised by the fragile creatures as they'd flutter silently around her back veranda. And for the first time in what feels like an eternity, I feel the suns' warm touch.