I guess it’s Siblings day… It’s been nearly three years since my only brother ended his life. Since his death, I’ve finished my Master’s degree, gotten a career job at my dream school, turned 30 and finally moved out of our parents’ house. I do what I can to keep moving forward, even when I’m exhausted. I can’t become stagnant. So I keep pushing to better my life. But I can’t help but think that my happiest days might be behind me because all the good stuff is tainted with the thought that I don’t get to share it with my brother or the guilt that I get to have things that he can’t have anymore. So I’d trade it all back in a heartbeat to have my brother back. Living under the same roof, stressing over money and work. Even with all the good I’ve tried to make for myself, I miss my old life. I try not to dwell on these thoughts for too long but I just needed to vent as I scroll through everyone’s posts on social media about their siblings.

I lost my brother to suicide June 13 2017.
He hung himself. First year I could not believe it! At times I woke up thinking he was still alive and I’d see him again thinking it was a bad dream. But now this is the second year and everything has hit me that he is really gone. This year is even worse than the first year. I really don’t know what to think at times.

My baby brother took his own life today. I cried with him on the phone as I pleaded for his life. I begged him not to leave me. My wife rushed to call the cops and my dad. He told me he was sorry he just couldn’t any more and he loved me…… then he hung up. I screamed, cried, bargained, and begged God as I constantly hit redial. I knew – I could feel it through my body, but yet I continued to call. The last time I spent 24 seconds listening to rustling and screaming his name. For those seconds I was hopeful he was trying to dodge the cops and he was alive BUT the phone disconnected just as my father was calling to tell me I had lost part of my heart and soul. He thought it was for the best. He thought he was doing us a favor.

He couldn’t understand through all of his anguish that he was NEVER a blemish, problem or other wise. He was my baby brother. I loved him unconditionally. He was an amazing uncle……. he knew all that. He knew we loved him, we know he loved us. I have said I wish I would have kept him on the phone a little longer and I get told he would have found another way. I know this but I’m his big sister and I was supposed to protect him, even from his self, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t help him! No one could. My dad has gone through hell to save him, help him, love him….. But he was tired and hurting and though he loved us, he left us….. he left us all broken! And I can’t stop replaying the 1 minute phone call that changed my life forever.

My oldest brother died nine years ago. He was eleven years older than me, and was living with his father at the time: we were half-brothers. I was actually only eleven when it happened, and when I found out all I felt was shock. That lasted until a good few weeks after the funeral.
Mum had nine kids with three different men, and each of us reacted differently to the news that our oldest brother killed himself. He had jumped off a pedestrian bridge over the highway in his local town, and unfortunately the fall wasn’t enough to kill him. He was hit by a truck soon after.
I know how much it hurts to lose a sibling to suicide, and so do my other siblings, but that hasn’t stopped us. Before my oldest brother, another half-brother of mine attempted suicide after he found out my father was sexting his girlfriend. He jumped off of a grain shed next to our house, but he survived. My older sister also had a plan to kill herself on a school trip, and had personalised suicide notes on her laptop. She was stopped by her teachers, thankfully enough. I barely scratched the surface of it here, but our lives haven’t been easy in so many ways.

I lost my older brother to suicide one year ago. I sometimes still cannot believe that it actually happened and he is gone forever. He lost his job and spiraled into a deep depression that none of us realized was as severe as it was. He was always helping other people, always. It was amazing how many stories we heard from friends and co-workers after he died. I think in some way that took a toll on him. Wish I could have helped him like he helped so many people. Wish I would have told him how much I loved him. -Pete

Loss my older brother to suicide August 27th, 2018. He left behind four kids. I just want him back. It wasn’t his time and i know he didn’t mean too. The worst part is that i feel maybe, MAYBE something could’ve been done. He left a voice message saying he wished he could speak to me, that if he could he wouldn’t do it. I just feel so lost, i don’t know life without him. I need him and want him back. GOD PLEASE GIVE ME STRENGTH

He would have been 39 this May, married with two young beautiful children. How could anyone be struggling so much inside and feel like they couldn’t reach out. Why wasn’t I more available and more welcoming to his texts and calls? We live in different countries now but we are still family. I don’t want to play the blame game but it can’t be real, he can’t really be gone. How do u be strong now for my own family, my parents, my boys who loved my brother so dearly. I need help to cope it still seems like a dream 🙁
I can’t even begin to imagine how his wife and kids must feel, they found him. How could anything ever be that bad that there was no other answer. Please can’t someone help me understand what happened and why….

Zachary Ryan Bowden. My oldest brother and best friend. We didn’t start off as best friends, no. Of course I was the weird little sister who has cooties. At that age we didn’t speak unless it was him making fun of me calling me meg or something else stupid. He was the cool one. The ring leader. The big brother all of my other big brothers and I aspired to be. He was always responsible. Always saved his money up smart to get something cool. Started his retirement savings at the age of 16! Not to mention he was handsome and certainly had his fair share of girl friends. We started bonding with each other a lot more when I turned about 14. His girlfriends would come over and I’d score him points by being the sweet little sister who says “oh he’s said so much about you, you’re all he talks about”. I’d give him advice. Then at about 16 I tried my first Smirnoff and we started becoming the best friends that we are. We partied together, mixed friend groups, and really just had a hell of a time. We also shared our sadness with each other. Our depression. What it was like to feel isolated and alone in a room full of people. What it was like to want to change and feeling incapable and defeated by the idea. What it was like to drive to work everyday with the thought of pulling the steering wheel and ending it all in a split second. What it was to feel pain. We showed one another that maybe we’re not alone if we still have each other. Someone else on this planet knows exactly how we feel and we can rely on one another. We hid our emotions from our family members. Kept it confidential. We didn’t want to worry our parents. We didn’t want to be perceived in a negative light. Just another cry baby teenager with sad boy complex. One night Zachary called me at four in the morning. Crying. Of course I went over to his to consol him. He talked again about all of his emotions lately. He even told me that he sits every night in the same place before going to bed. Next to his night stand with knees to chest holding his hand gun his dad has bought him for hunting that Christmas held right up against his left temple. Loaded and cocked. He’d sit there and cry for an hour trying to decide if he wanted to. If it was worth it. That night after he told me that it really hit me like a ton of bricks…. I knew exactly how he felt. I made him promise me, swear even, that he wouldn’t kill him self and he did. So naturally, sobbing, I promised too. I felt burdened by the promise, shackled even. Shackled to the earth to live out my sentence. I had made a promise after all. One month later on September 4th, 2017 he sat. Sat with knees to chest next to his bed side table with the gun cocked and loaded pointed at his left temple, tears streaming. And shot. At 11pm. I was angry. At him. Mostly at myself. Guilty. Alone. Really alone. Now I live out my days shackled still but stronger. With a tattoo on my left wrist “ i promise ;”. I hate the tattoo. I regret getting it. It’s like something to laugh in my face just ever present on my body. A year earlier I had witnessed my grandfather die of cancer right in my arms. But nothing could prepare me for the sting of my brothers death. I lost a piece of my heart. Forever. Just this year, 2019 my mother died. Drug overdose. She never really was a mom but I so desperately wanted her to be. It was hard. And now, just a few months after my mother, my grandmother is dying of cancer and of course I’m the one forced by her side to witness it. It does bother me but not to the extent it should. I’m simply numb. That’s what a lifetime of trauma and misery at the young age of 20 can do to a person. Numb them. I have to live out my days. Knowing that the last shred of happiness and innocence I may have had died with Zachary that night of September 4th.