The month of May is an exhausting month for our family.
We celebrate our wedding anniversary on the 7th, and our two daughters’ birthdays are on the 12th and the 16th. Not to mention Mother’s Day, which is thrown in the middle and usually forgotten.
Our bank account in May is always pretty sad, but our hearts are full from celebrating and enjoying special and unique memories and moments as a family.
Except last year. In 2015, after celebrating our two girls turning 1 and 3, and 4 happy years of marriage, my husband returned home from work early.
I greeted his early return with a grateful and exhausted smile, until I saw his creased forehead and his lips pressed firmly together. I knew there was something wrong and I put the baby down on the floor. I got up to meet him.
It was there that my world stopped, as he delivered the most surreal news I have ever heard.
My brother Jason had died earlier that morning from a sudden heart attack.
My other brother Aaron had called my husband Daniel and asked that he come home to tell me.
I remember hearing my heart pounding in my ears and silence all around me. I let out a loud cry.
The month of May, the perfect month that held all my most precious memories and moments, was now tarnished.
May 21st is now the day of my brother's death. May 26th and 27th now also carry significant horror and pain. Those were the days where I was faced with the reality of my brother’s passing — at his viewing and funeral.
This year, I tried not to think about the upcoming one year anniversary of my brother’s death.
Daniel and I celebrated our 5-year anniversary. There were flowers for me on Mother’s Day. Our girls’ 2nd and 4th birthdays happened complete with a carefully orchestrated birthday party.
I celebrated and my heart was full.
And then the 21st came and went. Between the busy-ness of work and the sometimes life-saving, magic of denial, I managed to get through.
It seemed that as soon as May arrived, it was over.
I was relieved that I had made it through to the end of the month, somehow doing quite well.
Then, I woke up on the morning of June 1st — with the crazy month of May behind me. That morning I felt like a dark cloud had hit me. It was a Wednesday and my husband was at work. My kids were home, driving me crazy, and my heart felt like it was being ripped out of my chest.
It was my brother's birthday and he was gone.
I couldn’t call him or tell him I loved him. I couldn’t wish him a happy birthday on his birthday (or what should have been).
So, I managed to get through the month of May, only to be knocked down completely on the date of my brother’s birth. The day that his mother and our father brought him into this world. He was red-haired, freckle-faced, and a complete surprise to everyone. A complete, life-changing blessing to the world.
I wished I could call Jay so badly that day. The urge to pick up the phone caused a physical ache in my hand and in my chest. The tears were overflowing. I went into the bathroom not wanting to scare my two children. I was afraid to let them see my grief over the uncle they would never know.
I laid on the cold, dark floor, and tried my best to remember Jason Miles, my brother. I remembered our last visit at McDonalds where my daughter Penny played with her cousin MacKenzie and I sat on a chair listening to Jay talk to our sister-in-law. I remembered feeling left out. I remembered feeling lonely and wishing I had kept in touch more with my brothers.
I remembered getting a call one month before my brother died and finding out that my dad had a terrible fall. I remembered yelling at my brothers and getting angry because they had visited my dad in the hospital without me. They didn’t even call me to tell me what was going on.
For a moment, lying on that cold bathroom floor, I was pissed off at my brother. Why didn’t he invite me? I could have seen him one last time. I could have had a few more hours and a few more memories with him. But the anger melted away, and I remembered our last conversations together. All of the phone calls throughout the month leading up to his death. I felt like I was trying to make up for lost time.
My dad’s fall made me realize life is short. I had almost lost my dad. I took the drive alone to London, because I needed to see him, to say goodbye. Just in case. When I left the ICU the nurse asked me if I was my brother Jay’s daughter. I laughed and said no, we were brother and sister — just seventeen years apart.
I texted Jay to tell him. “Lol! Damn, I’m getting old!!!” he texted me back.
We talked on the phone a few times. I apologized for not seeing him enough. He assured me there was nothing to worry about. “You know I love you right, Bri?” He reminded me. “Of course I do, I love you too.” I replied.
And it reminded me of the time, 13 years earlier, when I had been young and drunk, and cried in his arms, and asked him if he loved me. And his response had been the same.
While I was reliving memories, feeling engulfed by grief, laying on a damp towel on the bathroom floor, I heard a soft tap on the door.
“Mommy? I need to go to the potty. Mommy? Are you in there? Are you okay?” My four year old was checking up on me.
I wiped my damp cheeks and opened the door. My eyes were bloodshot and swollen.
“Mommy is okay. She just misses her brother today,” I said.
“The one who died?” asked my daughter.
“Yes, Jason,” I reply, as I helped her pull her pants up and turn on the tap.
And for a moment, my grief and my life as a mother intersect.
Just for a moment, because it’s not long before my kids are fighting, begging to go outside, and thoughts of my pain and grief are pushed aside for another time.
And they will return. I know it.
Whether it’s when I’m washing dishes, alone with my thoughts or when I’m in bed and my husband holding me. Or maybe it will be when I’m with my kids and I cannot contain the pain for a minute longer.
Because as hard as I try, sometimes the loss is too big to be pushed away for another day.
Some days, I need to lay on the cold, hard bathroom floor, and remember my brother. Let the kids bang on the door and the deadlines pile up.
Mothering through grief is hard.
But trying to separate the two ... I’m learning that’s impossible.
