GRIEF
I think there’s a misconception of grief. Some people think grief dissipates or goes away, but really you just learn to live with it. You learn to compartmentalize so you can go to work, and resume a happy life. However, you know it’s there.

It’s in their favorite shows, and memories on Facebook. It’s in the dates, the what ifs, and the missed events.

No, Justin, I don’t miss you any less. I’ve just gotten used to missing you.

I guess I can say there’s holidays and dates where I miss you more. But there’s never a day that I miss you less.

Lately, it just hurts to know that this is the time we’re supposed to have as siblings where age finally fades away. I know I’ll always be the youngest and probably most sensitive, but you were always so good about that. You never made me feel like a cry baby, but a sensitive soul, which is okay.

JUSTIN

Picture all the good things about the best person you know and I’m sure you’ll find something that I’ll say is just like Justin.

Now don’t get me wrong– Justin was normal. He was no saint or a prude or anything, but he was kind and the type of thoughtful that made you truly feel seen by the world. Justin made you feel good being exactly who you are. Justin made me feel like an athlete, capable of so much. He made me feel like being chubby wasn’t a death sentence when a big 4th grader thought it was.

Justin believed in working hard and doing the right thing. And he did the right thing by every single person in his life until the actual second he died.

Believe me– it’s a horror and a tragedy for the world to lose someone like Justin so young. It was the worst thing to ever happen to anybody in my family. To lose Justin.

I’m not sure I could fathom the world without my siblings as a bunch before it happened. The way we fulfilled a niche; the hole Justin left is impossible to recreate.

You don’t recreate or fill in a space for someone like Justin. The hole just remains and some days are harder.

LIFE IS FOR THE LIVING
My dad used to say that life is for the living and after we grieve, we need to be here for the ones that are left. You need to live. You need to do the things they would want you to, and not let it end you because they wouldn’t want that.

That’s easier said than done when the tragedy hits your own family. I know Justin would want all of us to be happy, but didn’t he know how integral he was to that?

I’m sure he did. I mean I hope he did.

In the end, it wasn’t about us.

LIFE IS LONG WITHOUT YOU
Life is short but at the same time, life is long. Justin, you should be here. Dammit. I wish you were here. I wish things happened differently. I wish I got to tell you how much I truly adored and loved you. And still love you. I wish I told you in words. I wish I wrote you some weird drunken note from college that you would laugh at and maybe cherish until the end. I didn’t know you wouldn’t be here after. If I did… I would have dug in to get to you from any place in the entire world. We all would have.

THE FOREVER WISHES
I wish you got to see the new shows I like that remind me of you, Steven Universe and Severance. I wish you got to see Dawn and Jay be the best parents. I even wish you got to see COVID. It sucked but I know you would have figured it out with us, and I think the science behind it all would have fascinated you. I wish you got to see it all.

CHANGE
Anyway, there’s been a lot of rapid change in the last couple of years and there’s just this intensity to life right now. And the intensity only further reiterates for me that this is a different life than it would have been with you in it.

I wasn’t supposed to outlive you. You were supposed to make silly dad jokes to your children. And I guess uncle jokes to Dawn and Jason’s kids. You were supposed to be proud of me in real life in real time when I finally started running. Really running like you. And enjoying it, and appreciating life. I didn’t always appreciate this life. I do now.

I do appreciate life more since losing you. But I would have chosen any other way to learn that lesson.

For now I suppose I just want you to know wherever your spirit is that I think of you often. And I hope I see you again in whatever form that may be.

I saw you in a dream recently. And in the dream you were at Amber Street fixing something for our parents. What a classic Justin vision! Typical for real. And I wonder if that was just a visit, or also a reminder to be here for each other.

You’re not here, so are you telling me to do it? Because we are. We are all here for each other. I hate that this is how you brought us together but you did.

We miss you forever and this life sometimes still doesn’t feel real.