My brother Michael recently died of an overdose. It’s been a hard loss to handle. Not only the grief but the memories I don’t want to remember won’t leave me alone. I haven’t thought about them for a long time and now they’re coming back to me. I know it’s the grief and I just wish they would stop popping in my head. I just need to get this out I feel like.

Growing up there were three of us. Dave the oldest, Michael and then me. By the time I was 4 (Michael 7 and Dave 9) my parents were constantly at each other’s throats. To say our home life was chaos is an understatement. For me it was all I knew so it was “normal” but for Michael and Dave their world was falling apart. My brothers rebelled in the chaos. They took the most beatings. Dave rebelled more so he got in trouble more, so he turned to Michael to bully. Those memories keep haunting me now that Michael is gone. One in particular was when I was 5 and I thought Dave was throwing Michael’s clothes down the stairs so he’d have to clean them up. So I picked them up and Dave called me up stairs. What he had done was removed all of Michael’s clothes and called me up to embarrass him. Michael was crying and trying to hide behind his closet door. This memory won’t leave me alone.

Dave being the oldest and in charge of us when my parents’ divorce was finally final (I was 8) got abused more by my mom. She would drag him up the stairs to their room and beat him behind a closed door. Michael and I would sit down stairs holding each while we heard the cries. My mom never touched me though. I always did what I was told. One day when I was 10 Dave jumped out a second story window because it was so bad. Praise be to God that he survived and after 2 months in recovery he was sent to live with my Dad. My mom made Michael and I call it his “accident” instead of what it was, suicide. Then it was just Michael and me. But a couple months later Michael took a whole bottle of Tylenol and had to get his stomach pumped, then he got to live with my Dad. Then it was just me but because this was the only life I knew the judge didn’t see any affect on me and I stayed with my mom.

I’m so grateful they went to live with my Dad. Life with my mom and her boyfriend was awful for me but I always did what I was told and she never hit me like she did them. I think I was her last child support ticket and physical marks would have took that away. So she took the mental abuse route instead.

Now that Michael is gone. I keep remembering the times of abuse and the times of bullying. He said a couple years ago to me that he never got over Dave trying to kill himself. I never have either. It’s another memory that haunts me 20 years later. There’s other memories that keep popping in my head and making me sad about Michael. I guess knowing that I can’t tell him I’m sorry for not protecting him or standing up to my mom better, makes it worse.

Dave is nothing like he was when we were kids. He regrets what he did to Michael before they started living with my Dad. He says it haunts him too. Dave cracks jokes about some memories that he think are funny but they make me more sad. Like even after death he still has to be above Michael. Or maybe it’s just how he’s coping.

I’m just sorry Michael ever had to go through that and have it effect him so bad the rest of his life. I wish I could have protected him.