I've Stopped Counting

I have stopped counting the days, months, years since my brother's death. He's no longer here. I certainly have not forgotten him, not for a minute. However, now that I'm back in the United States and I'm around people who relate to him as a faint memory well in their past, they look at me as if I am the one with the problem that I still cannot be forgiving that I was denied the right to see him before he died and to attend his funeral. Clearly I did have a problem at the time, and I did everything to try to solve that problem, but when I came back, I discovered that there were people trying to discredit me the whole time, claiming that I did not care, that I was never close to my brother anyway. How am I supposed to deal with liars?

Now I've lost my brother, mother and father. My brother is the link that I mourn now, because he was the link that understood best. I could talk to him and he understood faster than the others did. While he was still alive, I used to call him when it was after midnight in Israel, and we would talk for a long time because I was after doing my work and the phone rates were cheap. It was the best I could do, because I was denied the right to be with him.

Only when I got back to the United States did I learn that my stepmother was actually aiding and abetting with my ex-wife in keeping me from seeing my brother. Now that I know that, I realize just how alone I have been over the years. My father knew and did nothing; she controlled him to an unbelievable extent.

Some people have the nerve to say to me, "Get over it." After I have them picking up their teeth, I remind them that they're talking about family members. You don't get over losing family members. In the case of losing my brother, I'll never get over losing him because he didn't choose to leave and in many ways, I don't even feel that he really left. His memory is still very much alive to me. Anyone who knew him in life knows what I'm talking about. Some people just have that kind of memory that doesn't really die; he is one of those kind of people.

Were he alive today, he would be 52 years old. However, he died when he was only 39; he didn't even make it to the age of 40. I can feel the tragedy in that if nobody else can.

My brother's death does not separate us. My death will not reunite us. I'll always remember him; he will live in my heart forever.