Here I am again. Releasing my thoughts in some sort of effort to be close to you. I know you can’t read this and I know you never will, but it helps me feel close. It’s funny how that works.
I would be lying if I told you that every year didn’t get a little easier. Although time alone cannot heal loss, it does make coping easier. The fact that we haven’t seen you in five years, I think, is the hardest truth to deal with. We continuously tell ourselves that you are in a better place - heaven for some, matter for me. I’m fighting with myself about your existence, or better yet, your non-existence. I must admit I get a little jealous when I hear stories about my friends’ older siblings and how near-to-perfect their pretty lives sound. This, I generally keep to myself, but I can’t help how I feel. I will always feel robbed. I think Kezia and mommy would agree with this as well.
For one, I feel robbed of a life. But more than that, I feel robbed of memories, of innocence, of love, of protection. It’s not difficult for me to tell people exactly how I feel. Dealing with the deaths of both you and Biniam has helped me in ways I would have never imagined. I will always stress the fact that although I miss both of you terribly, I would not change the predicament that has been set up for me. I am who I am today because of what I have been forced to deal with, and I am in love with everything about myself. I walk these roads without God, but I am never alone. In some ways, you both live inside of me. I know I possess a piece of the social aspect that you, Travis, were so beautifully known for - your personality, your smile, your ability to care for others, your charisma. I know I possess pieces of the wit and the wisdom that Biniam carried - his quiet self in the corner, but oh so knowing and capable of the ability to carry on such a highly intellectual conversation, always beating stereotypes, proving others wrong, with not even a smirk on his face. I am beyond doubt lucky to possess any bit of you two’s personalities.
I wish that I only continue to grow, to polish my goodness, and do for others out of my kind heart, and to keep this good head on my shoulders on a path to success, exceeding all expectations I may have of myself and those others may have of me. I wish that in rough times, when I am led into temptation or when I feel that I am unworthy or not good enough, I can feel the two of you within me and you both will give me a little nudge - a little nudge towards the right path, because sometimes we get a little lost (of this I am fully aware of, partially because I have found myself in situations in which I very much needed a map).
As time passes, I try to think of more and more ways to bring your memory back alive. I like mom’s ideas - she goes to Ihop on your anniversaries because we all know your love of pancakes, or she’ll go and get Ethiopian food, because we all know your deep-rooted connection with your culture. I feel this is where we both truly connect - in our passion to be Ethiopian, to know who we are and where we come from. It saddens me that our father left us. But it saddens me even more that a father left his sons to grow up in a world where it is difficult to be a man without being taught. Nevertheless, I would argue that you and Biniam were more of men than our own father. How this is possible, I will never know! I loved visiting you more than anything. I love listening to Tupac rap, even still today, because his voice reminds me of you. I love the smell of incense, because it reminds me of your old room. Honestly, I almost find comfort in hearing someone speak to themselves, because it makes me laugh and reminds me of you. The good and the bad, I’d take it all, just to remember you.
I was flattered, meeting an aunt of ours that lives in a far off hut, a three-hour trek to the countryside in Awash, Ethiopia by public transportation, by walking, and by mule to hear that she had met you, too, nine years prior to meeting me. And her roof was made of straw, her floors covered in dirt, the wooden beds with no mattresses, the rain seeping through the holes in the roof, leaving me to hold my umbrella inside, as we gathered together over some injera and fresh scrambled eggs. It was a blessing in the most secular sense, to have met someone who remembered you. How I wanted to tell her she was lucky, and that I was lucky, to have been related to someone with a soul as pure as yours. These occasions are few, but they connect me to you in different ways and for that, I am grateful.
I remember vividly the room we had been placed in when they told us the possibility of you living a life no longer existed. I remember looking around the small room, for a glimpse of how to respond, for someone to say that hospitals were a piece of shit and our insurance company instructed them to do this because it was costing them too much money. It never happened. We all knew this would come. Mommy had been convinced you moved your foot by free will. But we knew it was just the way your brain had been responding to the treatment. I will never forget the week I spent with you, saying goodbye. You were so beautiful even in your weakest state.
February 1, 2007. It has been five years and I’m prepared for more… Rest in Peace.
November 13, 1982 - February 1, 2007.
