A Letter to You
Nonfiction by Haley Byers
Flowers Bloom when the Rain Falls by Rebecca Finkelstein (2024)
Content Warning: mentions of cancer/sickness, death
You’re never the same after losing a sibling. Nothing prepares you for the emotional toll that comes with getting your innocence ripped from your bare hands. Day in, the inevitable fate inches closer. A silent killer. Ready to strike at any moment. Day out, blinded by the belief that everything will go back to normal. We’ll wake up from this nightmare. Just a little more time. Yet time becomes a burden when all you’re waiting for is good news. A glimmer of hope. Progress. Something. But praying only becomes an action falling into open nothingness.
I floated through the layers of an unknown abyss. Alone and afraid. The dark seems so lonely when the ones closest to you are the ones holding you there. The truth feels like the secrecy that lies within the Garden of Eden. A pinhole of understanding. Holding all the answers to my big thoughts.
A brilliant nature surrounds the mind of a child. One thought starts before the previous one has a chance to form. Young and naive without a care in the world. Until that same world comes crashing down in unknown heaps of trauma and being educated on the ending everyone must come to. Death.
The space they used to occupy at the dinner table stays cold and untouched, waiting for the day they join once again. That day never comes. The games you once played together aren’t fun anymore. They become props frozen in time, never to be touched again. The pictures that decorate the living room walls are merely reminders of a soul that didn’t spend nearly enough time here on earth. A soul I’ll love until we’re reunited in a realm far away from here.
Ryan. My best friend before I knew what best friends were. My big brother. He was diagnosed with childhood cancer: large cell lymphoma. An aggressive sickness that plagued his body. Too intense for a nine-year-old. His body struggled long before we knew. Ignorant doctors ignored my parents' pleas for help as he silently died from the inside out, right in front of our eyes. As strong as he was, on June 14, 2006, Ryan lost his battle. A battle that no child should experience. I got to see his physical form for the last time at his open-casket visitation. Refusing to wear anything black, I took the day to show off my long, sparkly, pink dress; one of two memories I still have from that day. The other has played on repeat every day since. The picture of his small frame placed mindfully in the bed he’d rest in forever left a wound deep inside me that will never fully heal.
I had just turned six when our lives were turned upside down. I was six when I became an only child. Six years, too young to understand, “Ryan won’t be coming back, but you’ll see him again one day.” What does that mean? What do you mean he won’t be coming back? Questioning, half expecting him to walk through the door, healthy and back to his usual self. An expectation I set long before I knew what death was. Before settling into the truth. He’s actually gone. I experienced such a juvenile type of mourning. One I didn't understand. One I still don’t understand completely. “Life moves on,” they say, but I’m stuck standing still. How could I just move on? How could they be so nonchalant? I lost my brother! Why does no one care? My cries for help and my damaged inner child were held down by abandonment issues that were no fault of my own.
Nothing could have changed his outcome. His soul contract ended his life before it even began. Destined to be nothing but a memory, cherished every day like he hasn't been gone for eighteen years. Preserving stories to tell little ones who share his name and artwork imprinted on skin that will remain forever. The ink that sits under my skin for him—carefully thought out —brings waves of comfort. He’s always there.
I spent years wrapping my head around why the universe is so cruel. Why are the most beautiful and bright people taken from us so soon? I found comfort in the unknown. The beauty behind believing there’s more to existing than its physical form. Debating whether or not reincarnation is something humans made up to cope with death, or if the universe is sending signs that they’re on the other side watching over us. For us, Ryan follows our family in the form of a monarch butterfly. He knows more about our time spent together than we do. Holidays and birthdays are silently graced by his presence. Showing up at every family gathering, begging to be noticed; I always notice.
I walk through life every day searching for signs of his presence. The precisely placed angel numbers and sun shining through the clouds at the mere thought of him connects the spiritual realm and the real world with a sheer division. He feels closer than ever. The memory of him—so alive in my mind—lives comfortably as I experience what he couldn’t. As he rests below the surface, I spend every day living for both of us. He would’ve loved the little things life has to offer. I speak words laced with admiration for the brother I quickly lapped in age, hoping he can hear them where he is. Hoping the person I’ve become is making him proud. I will never stop talking about him or what he could’ve become. He deserved so much more than what he got.
This letter for him has hit a place deep in my being that has enabled the healing that I’ve longed for. As I pass twenty-four years old, the fresh stories and souvenirs I treasured have long passed into long-term memory. I keep them safe—hidden even—to be opened with a key that only I possess. Selfishly, I want to keep his memory to myself for my darkest days, but my dark days have seemingly passed. Years of cherishing his life has taught me to cherish my own so that one day, he can be there welcoming me home.
I promise to never let anyone forget who you were. My future will be painted with bright memories written on paper, dedicated to only you. I’ll introduce newcomers to the still frames of my life and tell them about you. It’s the least I can do. I hope to find you in every lifetime after this one, big brother, until then.
Haley Byers (she/her) is a multifaceted writer and literary lover living in Toronto, Ontario. Originally from Fredericton, New Brunswick, she moved her whole life to Toronto to turn her love for writing into a career. As a second-year student in the Bachelor of Creative and Professional Writing at Humber Polytechnic, she has explored many genres, such as article/editorial work, poetry, and fiction, but has fallen in love with the art of creative nonfiction. Her main goal is to show her audience that you can live with both grief and gratitude while healing from experiences that are out of your control. When she’s not writing her experiences on paper, you can find her curled up on the couch rewatching her favourite movies with a can of Fresca in hand.