Jeremy

I was a few days shy of my 8^th birthday the day he was born. I always thought of him as an early present until he was old enough to bother me, which didn’t take long. That’s the way it is with little brothers though isn’t it. He wasn’t actually my little brother, but the word cousin just doesn’t do justice to the way I loved him. And I loved him so. He moved in with us straight from the hospital and he became my live baby doll. I was still at the age that I was made to sit down when I held him, but eventually he got big enough that I could just drag him around by the waist and no one panicked.

I know he loved me as much as I loved him because he was my shadow. One of us was the sun to the moon, always revolving around the other during our childhood. One of my favorite memories of us is the many times I rode him around on my mom’s bike that had a child seat on the back. It was too big of a hassle to take him out of the seat when we stopped, so I just plopped him down on the ground and he sat sideways on the ground and just waited, twisting his torso in an attempt to correct for gravity. That was the thing about Jeremy: he didn’t care what you did as long as you included him because he loved you so much that he only wanted to be with you. Don’t get me wrong, like siblings do, especially younger siblings, they annoy you and you do things that times like these make you hate yourself to the pit of your soul.

For some reason I feel like I have to record every memory, every syllable ever spoken between us so that it doesn’t slip away. So that it doesn’t slip away like he did. I loved him so much. I love him so much. It doesn’t seem fair that things are now said in the past tense but we are, I guess, living on borrowed time. Jeremy’s was just much too short. Twenty. Almost twenty-one. Poor kid was never even able to legally buy a drink although we all know that didn’t stop him from ever having one. I know that I can never write it all down and even if I could I could never make the words right. They are better in memories anyway, I suppose, because you can feel memories. You can hear him laugh his baby belly laugh like he did when I pushed him in the Fischer Price swing and pretended like he kicked me down. I can feel the softness of that beautiful brown skin that only a pale, fish-belly white girl could appreciate.

I don’t know how life is going to go on without him. I don’t know how you can love someone so much and not be able to tell them or show them anymore. I don’t know how this is every going to be okay. The last time he wrote me, I didn’t write him back. It wasn’t intentionally or maliciously, I just didn’t write him back. One of those life lessons you can only learn through regret. Regret of not simply picking up the phone and telling him. Telling him all that he means to you and all that you hope for him. Telling him that you loved him like only those who have a baby brother or sister can.

When I was little I worried about losing Jeremy or my older brother Michael. This is far worse than I could have ever imagined. It hurts more. It hurts in ways I never knew it could hurt. I don’t know that I can ever cry enough. Tears just lead to more tears and yet I still feel all this pain.