For Megan....

So I had coffee with Megan today and she made a comment about how she would never know how it felt to lose a sibling or what I went and what I am going through... it made me break out into a monologue about what happened and what was running through my head that night and she told me to write it out and I thought what better way to write it out than to blog it here.

"You know that feeling you get when you are on a roller coaster or on a free fall when your heart is in your throat but then it drops to the floor? It feels like that and then I stopped hearing words after "There's been an accident your brother shot himself..." And I heard that "Waa waa waa" as I tried to piece together what I was told. It suddenly all made sense and all wanted to do was leave but there was no escape... I had to walk past co-workers and a table full of people that knew me and I was sitting with and drinking with only moments before. Then there was the need to get home... as fast as I could. I didn't know what to do or who to call it was something I hadn't planned for... somehow in all the emergency training I had I missed the chapter on how to handle this. So I'm sitting in a car scrolling through my phone racking my brain who to call. Then it hits me, my area director for YoungLife! Only as I call his home no one picks up, so I call his cell... still no answer... back to his home phone leaving a frantic message to call me ASAP... next his cell with the same message. Then a voicemail from his wife to call her... back to his home phone to talk to his wife... and tell her what happened. Words and prayer that I couldn't grasp only that an email and phone tree would start. Then who to call? Wishing the car would move faster even though we are flying down 85 doing over a 100 at then time. More phone calls... telling the story over and over only makes it real... then a text from my area director saying he is at a silence and solitude retreat and he would call me in the morning, and my text saying it can't wait. Telling the story one more time just made it all real and suddenly I'm crying into the phone with a guy who doesn't know how to handle a crying girl. More prayers and the asking for driving safely. Then suddenly we are in then the hospital parking lot and the sense of false hope that maybe, just maybe it will be okay... and everything will work out. I walked through those door and see my mom... I zeroed in on her... and all she started to say was "he didn't.." and I knew and that feeling of my heart hitting the floor happened again and I couldn't hear anything and I was in the middle of the ER sobbing... trying to make my world make sense again... I was grabbing at anything to put my world back in order. Then some guy is telling my house is being sealed off and we won't being home tonight and the whole time he is talking I'm thinking "Who the FUCK are YOU?" Of course it's my mom's pastor... then it see people I know... my mom's whole small group, Terrie, my uncle, my brother, a few of his friends... a nurse will a box of tissues... then going to my mom's boss' house. Only I don't have clothes to sleep in or clean underwear and it suddenly becomes a big deal I NEED clean underwear. So a stop at Target... I find what I need and I'm sitting waiting for my best friend to come out of her dressing room when I get a call and I have to say it again... and it becomes real... so I'm sitting on a bench at Target in front of the dressing rooms sobbing. Then I'm talking to the lady from Target and she had four brothers on now she has one... it won't get better it will get easier... thanks. Check out... back to the car... time to pick out music... but what should I listen to? The song I picked would be forever tainted... every time I listened to it I would think of that night. So I picked Justin Roselino... his Live CD... and I skipped the music and listened to his stories because I knew that they would make me smile and I needed that right then. We get to the house and rooms are being assigned... do I sleep with the friend or my mom... I spend most of the night going between the two rooms trying to wake up from the nightmare I was sure I was having. Only when a phone call woke me up I realized the nightmare was real. Back to Columbus to tie up lose ends and drive back to Buford. Meeting the guy in the Wal-Mart check out who had lost his brother to suicide the same way I had... crying in the Wal-Mart check out because I had now entered some club I didn't want to join. A blur of days trying to be strong and not shedding tears for my mom's sake... fighting and losing friends. Feeling out of control... feeling lost. Feeling like I'm drowning and choking. Feeling like my entire world has been shaken, flipped and turned backwards. Fighting to not let this define who I am as a person but not wanting it to be lost either."

That is more or less what was running through my head at the time. It's the best way I can put into words what I went through even though they don't do it justice and they are barely touching what I went through. The pain got more and more real as the days past and just blocking everything out and becoming numb seemed like the best way to handle it at one point... it didn't work and I had to start working through my pain. Like the lady at Target said "It doesn't get better but it gets easier."