In two days, it will have been two years since the last time I saw you alive. In two weeks, it will be two years since you left us. My baby brother.

Nearly two years without you. It feels like yesterday. It feels like a lifetime ago. It feels like it never happened, and it feels like it happens over and over whenever I remember you’re gone. Whenever I dream about you and wake up and realize you’re still gone. You left. You gave up. You’re never coming back.

I’m still angry at you. The guilt that I wasn’t there for you still overwhelms me. The sorrow that you were alone in your last moments suffocates me.

How did we not know? Why couldn’t you tell us? Why couldn’t you tell me? What triggered you? What broke the camels back? Why didn’t you leave a note? Why didn’t you explain? Why, two years later do we still not know why you did this?

You could have come to me! You knew about my attempt when I was 16. You knew about my mental health struggles. You knew that I had gotten help! I would have helped you get help! I wouldn’t have shamed you, or told you just to pray about it. I would have just loved you, and helped you find the help you needed. Hell, I would have offered to pay for it if you needed it! I would have done anything to still have you here with us.

Dad, Jen and I are trying to move on. We’re trying to keep living and pursuing our lives. But I think mom’s giving up. You’re still her favorite. She’ll never admit it, and refuses to see it. Two years later, She still sleeps with your stuffed manatee from when you were a kid. She’s still looking for someone to blame. It changes every time I talk to her, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re gone.

I read a book the other day where one of the characters lost her brother almost exactly how we lost you. It wrecked me. I threw the book and lost myself to the grief again.

I feel selfish. Your pain, tiredness, anger, whatever led you to take your life must have been so overwhelming. But here I am, complaining about how it’s affected me. I feel justified though, because whatever you were facing is over now. But the pain you left me with. The abandonment, the loneliness, the missing you, I still have to live with. Everyday. And then I feel selfish again, and hate myself for not being with you. For not helping carry whatever burden felt like too much for you. That’s what big sisters are supposed to do. We’re supposed to life the burdens of our siblings. We’re supposed to help guide them. To show them our mistakes and how to avoid them.

Michael. I miss you. I love you. I hate you. I grieve you.