To Build A Home

today someone at worked asked if my brother had any children,

[she] only asked because a couple of weeks ago she came across my brothers facebook page, and thought he was pretty. She told me this. She said 'you have a really pretty brother' and then spent some time viewing his profile. I guess she flipped through some of his pictures and eventually came across one of Danny.

It was taken a few months before he died. In may. near my brothers birthday. Morgan is awkwardly holding him, while Danny's lips are pursed in curiosity at the girl (me) pointing a camera at his face.

It was the first and last time any of us got to met him in person (outside of checking in on him every week via the phone and mailing him gifts). He had curious eyes the whole day. But he didn't' cry. not once. He sort of just took us all in, and then slept.

And the girl who asked me if Morgan had any children is a friend of mine. And she was just curious because in the photo he is protectively holding Danny from what seems like ages ago. And yet, I was taken aback by the question. I didn't even know how to answer. I paused for a moment. Because he does have a kid. He is a father. I was a aunt. My mom was a grandmother.

And just because he isn't here, does that mean we don't exist as those people anymore. Do our titles get stripped away, or worse buried with him.

So i answered in the past tense, and said that he died last summer. And it was the first time I'd ever said it out loud and it sounded foreign, but I didn't know what else to tell her. I couldn't deny his very own existence in favor of my own. In favor of saying 'no, he doesn't have one', just so I wouldn't have to explain.

But the moment I told her the truth her face broke into pieces that resembled mine and I felt as if I had shattered in front of her. Because what else was I suppose to say. What am I suppose to say when people ask. Danny was my brother's son, and he continues to be someone I miss every day.

I had no words.

And then we sat there in silence for a short while. And I wanted to get up and go to the bathroom to cry, but I couldn't because she stared at me with sad eyes. So i just stayed there with her as she looked at me as if he'd died yesterday.

He's really dead isn't he?

And this never gets any easier does it?

And he'll never get older. And he'll always be a past tense.

And we'll always just try to go on the best that we can without falling apart in the silence.

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