A New Life: This Time I as I and Not As We...

As I listened to this song on the bus ride home from Cali, tears tumbled down my face.  This seems so fitting for my baby brother and starting all over again.  My heart has the biggest ache for him, wishing I could wave my hand in the sky and erase every heartache and bad thing done to him.  I realize we all make mistakes in life and sometimes our choices bring consequences but there’s a point in life when enough is enough and I think to myself how can the world break a person anymore than what it already has?

Chorus to the above song:
Day one day one
Start over again
Step one step one
I'm barely making sense
For now I'm faking it
'til I'm pseudo making it
From scratch begin again
But this time I as I
And not as we

It’s been a gentle, slow journey this past week of reconnecting with my younger brother.  He’s making small steps in finding his way back to the top of the water after falling into an ocean of indescribable loss and heartache. Some days are good.  Some days are challenging but I am so proud of him. Each day he wakes up with the deepest heartache one could imagine after losing someone of 18 years and finds the smallest thing to force him to move forward. We both recognize it will be a journey of rediscovering life and the reason to live without his wife, but he’s doing it. The first few days were filled with uncontrollable tears and shakes, asking every ‘why God’ in the world, saying he’ll never do anything he loves again. Now, he’s taking baby steps to begin finishing his computer certification degree when he settles, to playing music again – all good things! 

The next few months will bring healing in many different ways and I’m thankful to not only be married to the most incredible husband in the world but to have wonderful step-children – each one ready to embrace my brother despite his past and love him to a new beginning in life.  I could not ask for more.