When Grief and Guilt Are Good Friends
Nonfiction by Avery Rall
Untitled by Koda Christensen
CW: Death
August weather has always been my least favourite. Even when the heat finally quenches, it still spoils the skin with unneeded warmth, sticky underneath clothes that cling to my backside. I was young and the urge to complain boiled over, but I couldn't, for it was a special day and no one would want to listen to a seven-year-old complain. I had to bear it for my parents who were getting married. It was on this day that we officially accepted my stepdad into our family, although I am pretty sure I accepted him way before then. The laughter, harmless banter, and soft smiles were proof of that.
Not only would we be accepting him, but we’d also be accepting his two sons, Austin and Cody. I’d met Austin before, when he’d come visit and we would play games on the old PlayStation 3 console. A car game, if I remember. I grew fond of him over time, and I was excited that I would get the chance to meet his older brother. The thought of having brothers made my little self happy, mostly due to the fact that I grew up as an only child. If only it lasted longer.
Cody was tall, scrawny, but his smile was warm and a tad bit awkward. He was friendly nonetheless, so happy and inviting that all the nerves of meeting him had disappeared. He had a girlfriend too, one with a pretty smile. Cody danced with us, according to my mom, but I don’t remember. I should’ve clung onto these moments longer and harder, gripped them tighter in my hands and pushed them into the slates of my ribs and heart so they could rest there forever.
August 25, 2012, was the first and last time I saw him.
December 19, 2012, was the day he died.
He turned 21 in September. So young, and still had a life ahead of him, but death always finds ways to show no mercy. Death is cruel, cold like the winter winds that bite my cheeks red. My mom picked me up at school that day, unaware of what would be uttered moments later. I remember clambering in the backseat, confused when my mom joined me, her face so serious that, despite being so young, I remember the feeling of there’s something wrong sinking in my stomach.
She told me he died in a car accident the night before on his way home from work. He swerved into a tree due to tiredness and it came crashing down on his car. He died early morning on the 19th, my stepdad and his ex-wife having to take him off of life support.
Don’t you think it’s strange? The way life plays out? Never would I have thought that the smiling new older brother I danced with would die a couple of months later. He was so alive. Breathing. Happy. Then death thought it’d be funny to suddenly rip him away from us.
Although I only met him once, I still cried. Clinging to my mom and choking on my grief.
His death tore the family apart. Austin, angry at the world and my stepdad, removed himself from our lives and was never heard from again. I always wonder what he’s been up to, but I don’t dwell on it, for that was his choice. I can’t decide if I should hate him or not for losing two brothers at the same time.
Grief soon became a friend. Heavy in my chest, suffocating and burning. It appeared only when it liked to. But despite that, it was always there, lingering. It felt like being homesick, but you could never go home.
Then guilt joined hands. I’d hate–and still do–the moments when I’d forget about him. I almost felt sick at the thought that when I was happy, he was dead. Gone. Guilty because I can barely remember what he was like, what he said to me, or his voice. Guilty because I wasn’t selfish enough to hold onto these memories of him that were unknowingly fickle. That regret became a burden. All I can remember of him now is just a memory. Blurry and fragmented.
Even though I am much older now, grief and guilt sometimes like to make their appearances through the dates that draw near or through the song he liked whenever I hear it. I like to view them as old friends because no matter what, they always find a way to crawl back into your life.
Unafraid and unpredictable.
Avery Rall is 19 years old attending the Creative and Professional Writing Program at Humber Polytechnic. Rall usually dabbles in sci-fi, fantasy, and dystopian stories.