Letters to my brother 1

My Dearest Brother,

It’s been so long since we’ve had one of our talks I decided to continue them the only way I know how and that’s through writing.

Remember when we were kids and you made such great efforts to shield me from the bad things in life? I never understood the true meaning of why you would go to such lengths to protect me. For the last 14 years I’ve gotten a glimpse of the strength you must have had to endure what you did for the 37 years you lived. You weren’t living, you were trying to survive a fucking nightmare.

You had to have been exhausted keeping so many secrets. It had to have been excruciating knowing even if you did tell someone there was a huge possibility that you would have not been believed, I know this because when I share my experience I’m not believed.

I miss you more than I could ever express and I want you to know, I feel your pain. Your death cracked open something in me and I can clearly see that you were suffering immensely. I remember thinking after you died that I was determined to figure out what could happen to someone to make them feel the only way to freedom was by taking their own life.

I had to do a lot of research but I eventually figured it out. I had to remove myself from the family to find it and then the family removed me and I became an orphan, which was what you were trying to avoid. I haven’t forgotten that you always thought I was the favorite, in a way I was because I didn’t question anything. I was the favorite because I fell in line and was obedient, until you died and I started digging.

Things really started falling into place when step dad number 4 took his life 7 years after you did. That was when I started to see what you protected me from. You tried to protect me from her and you did such a fantastic job at it no one would have ever believed you were abused except there was this one time I remember witnessing it. We were so young but seeing you pinned up against the wall by your throat with your feet at least a foot off the ground is an image I can’t erase.

There was a time I wondered why you, why were you abused and I wasn’t? When in all honesty, we both were but that’s where your protection came in, you took as much as you could so I didn’t have to, and you reminded her more of the one who hurt her the most after all you shared the same name. You were a constant reminder that he left her, he left us and you paid for it, we both paid for it.