My brother Mike

By your side I share your grief, Lauraanne.  I am so sorry you have lost your brother.   I wonder why we feel what we feel. The sibling connection for some of us - I think it is something like being entwined like tree roots.  We have shared the same unique or peculiar childhood, the same DNA.  We are the same, we are not the same.  I don't know.   My only brother died on 2 March this year.  I felt the devastation of this recently - though my mum and I had been crying since 1 November last year when the brain cancer was diagnosed.  My online bereavement counselling began a couple of weeks ago. There are no groups to feel comforted by.  So phone counselling is available, in these strange, frightening times.  I had wondered what grief was - this soft word.  Grief and mourning.  Soft words.  This week I was hit by hellish physical pain.  I couldn't breath.  My joints hurt.  My body ached.  I felt so low, so scared. Lost, desperate.  All these things.  I live with my mum and I wanted to keep my pain away from her.  She is experiencing a different kind of pain. Losing her son.  Today, I feel better. Four days on.  Anger and sadness do not mix well, I realise the mix made me feel so ill.  I had been mourning the loss of my brother's life, what it could have been in his past, what it could have been in the future.  In my lonely state I visited the Ted talks to find out about grief.  A couple were useful - an interview by Brene Brown which is quite current.  And then someone talked about that grief is not closure.  I picked up from this that I wanted to be in the present with my brother in the present with me in the sense that we are entwined like tree roots - part of each other.   It is a lonely place here , but I feel - less lonely when you know it is a shared experience.