I loathed the first Christmas after my brother died.
I felt like the strands of jewel-toned lights were taunting me, the ads flashing symbols of family and love and togetherness. The tumbling of decades of holiday memories rising in my mind: the time my brother and I secretly opened each other’s gifts weeks before Christmas. The photos of us hunched beneath the tree, unwrapping sweaters or skis. It all felt like salt on the wound, stinging and mean.
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I’m reading this as I just lost my younger brother to heroin December 11th 2016. I live in San Francisco for 4 years now. I was trying to move my younger brothers out here and also my parents. They all have drug problems, prescription pill addiction after surgery, all but my father, the only clean one who takes Ambein to sleep. But my two younger brother and mother all addicts who lived together along with my father. I moved the middle brother out cause he was way worse, got him clean but couldnt get him to get a job a support himself. Waited and waited and pleaded with him daily to please get it together so we couple help Paul, our youngest brother. Then our youngest brother gets ran over while at a red light on his mortorcycle, he survives, lucky to be alive but put on even stronger meds. He gets a settlement from the accident then the middle brother hooks him up with his drug dealers, they all know he has money, even druggie family members. I am pleading with Paul to come to San Francisco, that everyones moving out here anyway and just come be with your brothers. He agrees and tells me he is so sick of recovering from this crap and I book his ticket, so happy. Im so happy like ive never felt so releived. I finally felt like everything was going to be ok. The Paul gets ahold of me and tells me he doesnt want to go through the bad withdrawels Steve went through, our middle brother when he came out to stay with me, so he cancels his flight till he can get suboxen to help him get through, I was panicing at that point, knew something bad was gonna happen, so Pauls problem get to the point where my father tells him he needs help and he cant stay at the house anymore, so he ends up living out of a hotel. My biggest fear, he has no one to look out for him, the vultures are circling at this point, every drug dealer knows he is alone, my druggie uncle which is my mom’s brother is getting high with him in a hotel, I call the hotel to talk to Paul like I did everyday and tell him hey man lets book that ticket, you will love it out here, but my uncle answers, tells me Paul is sleeping so he is just gonna leave, I felt releived that he was sleeping cause he wasnt doing drugs and he was safe. Then Monday morning my uncle texts my parents to go check on Paul asap, then I get a call at work at 9am, all I remember is my mother screaming while my father was talking, I knew at that point Paul was dead, I still dont remember what my father was saying when he called. This was a very long reply and not written well but my emotions are all over the place. Come to find out when I called the hotel and my uncle answered that Paul was overdosing from doing a line of heroin and was collapsed on the hotel bathroom floor while my uncle is right there dong nothing and telling me he is sleeping. He hangs up with me and walks out the door leaving my brother dieing on the bathroom floor, doesnt call 911, doesnt tell me anything other than he is sleeping. And then a day later texts my parents to go check on him asap.I cant put into words what I am feeling inside, its not good. Our family is ruined forever, I have so much resentment towards everyone including my own family members, none of them ever thought someone would die from their recreational drug use and I pleaded with them all to please get clean, something bad will happen eventually. Now our youngest has died, just turned 35. My mom, middle brother have been on precription pain pills for over 15 years and my uncle which is my moms brother has been on everything and his drug of choice is crack has been on for 40+ years. ANy of those people you would think wouldve died, but no, the one who just got started who had no positive influence around him, not even family is left alone to die in a hotel bathroom for my parents to find. At any rate it been a couple weeks and i am not dealing with this well and been reading what I could to get some direction. Nothing is helping. I have no desire to do anything in life and I was the most outgoing person and have this thirst for life and can just stop and look around and really appreciate everything thats going on around me. Now nothing brings me joy, no drive in me anymore to do anything. All I can see is everytime I do something that I know Paul would like it too, we were so much alike, 8 years apart. He was not a druggie, he was surrounded by nothing but druggies and tried doing what they were doing and it took his life. Its so unfair, we just talked and always talked about the future, he loved working on motorcycles and cars and wanted to have a project car for all the brothers to do. The only thing I am taking over and its killing me is trying to make his junk truck come to reality in his memory, but I dont know how to do that so I am paying to have it done. But I will keep that truck for the rest of my life. I can only hope that everyone involved suffers a horrible painful checkout of life. I will carry this with me for life all over fn drugs.
Oh Rob, that is so much. I am so sorry for your loss. Sending hugs.