October 9, 2014
Dear Brian,
I'm not sure why I hadn't made this connection before now, but you took your own life smack dab in the middle of "Mental Illness Awareness Week" in 2010. The irony of that is not lost on me. I've been seeing so many updates this week regarding 2014's Mental Illness Awareness Week and it made me wonder what during which dates it fell back in 2010 and... sure enough... that's when you chose to kill yourself.
This is unrelated but for some reason I've been thinking a lot about how I seem to have nothing but nice things to say about you and I fear some people may think that I'm "idolizing" you now that you're gone. I've thought about it a lot and really... I don't have anything unpleasant to say about your or our time together. I do have one regret that haunts me a little bit, though.
You and I were pretty close as children and continued to be as adults-- I loved that we were roommates for a few years. However, recently I've been thinking about how when we were looking to renew the lease on our apartment we'd had some kind of fight or argument... and honestly, I can't even tell you what it was about. But I do remember that we were both so angry that we decided we'd each look for our own places instead and we didn't speak for an entire week. Obviously, it blew over and we went on to renew our lease and live together another year. But boy, were we ever pissed off. And for some ridiculous reason that I can't even recall today. It makes me wonder when I see siblings or friends fighting or even splitting up over silly things... I wish they appreciated what they have. I'm not so naïve to think that there aren't situations or arguments from which people can't seem to get their relationships on track and in some case, people hurt each other badly enough that it would do more harm than good to keep that person in their life. Completely understandable But I wish for them that they think long and hard about it before breaking ties... because once a person is gone for good you can never get back that time you lost.
I'm sorry for losing even that one week with you, Brian. If I had known then that I'd only have you for another 10 years I'd have made that silly argument go away.
I miss you.
Love,
Laura