Dominick Joseph

I have so much to say but not many words or much heart to say them.  DJ died on Saturday the 1st of February.  It has been 10 days and my life still seems so empty.  I still feel so cold.  The day was too sad for me to recall on this.  It was a day of panic and devastation.  My heart is hollow, I don't even know what to do with myself anymore.

I stare at his obituary as if this hasn't really happened.  I look at photos of him or of him and I and I still feel like he is here but yet feel so empty because he isn't here.  The grief is so different from any other grief.  Is it all the same?  Am I constantly and continuously grieving every loss along with this one?  I don't know.  My life just feels so numb.

Of course DJ was medically fragile.  It is all that I have ever known.  But once you are told over and over and over that your brother won't live past age 3 or 7 or 10 and he consistently proves everyone wrong, you begin to live with them as if every 'normal', healthy person in your life.  Did my family and I take for granted his life by living it alongside him as though he would or could outlive us?  I don't know.  At the same time, we have all prepared for this time.  I mean, he was constantly reminding us that he could go every time with every emergency visit to the hospital and stay in Intensive Care Unit.  I could tear this all apart and try to (over) analyze it - as I do everything.  I could think of all of the things that I would do differently - as I always do.  But I won't.  He was my older brother and disability or not, I know our relationship would have been the same regardless.  I cannot have any regrets ever about him.  He was my brother and I loved (love) him immensely.

As he laid there, lifeless I could do nothing but snuggle him and tell him profusely how much I love him.  I couldn't say it enough times.  And I don't think it matters how much you tell someone that you love them.  When they lye there lifeless the love pours out of you and you can only hope that half of it absorbs into the air, their spirit, their body.  I wept over him for what  feels like hours.

I don't know how many people have to die to make me feel as though I no longer exist.  With every person that I love infinitely dies, I feel as thought bits of me goes with them.  Am I even whole anymore?

DJ was the glue to my family.  That is certain.  My heart is so heavy and with every deep, grieving sigh that I breathe I remember how it felt approaching his body.

I just can't believe he is gone.  My family is broken.  I cannot even begin to tackle comforting my parents.  I don't even know how to do it.  I know what it is like to lose a child and there is nothing that can be done.  So I just sit with them.  I sit and I try to make them feel better with moments of laughter and hugs.  I just feel so helpless.