3:42 PM

[grinninfoole]

That's the time at which mole_underfield breathed his last, this past Monday. I was sitting there with him, chatting with an old friend about his earliest memories of my brother, and then I realized that that Dave was completely still. I can't wrap my brain around that simple fact. Is there not some other room where my brother breathes still? Perhaps in another part of the house that I've somehow lost? When I find it, won't he be in there, reading quietly, or perhaps painting flowers?

Mom tells me, and Dave would nod, that he was truly happy when I was born, and loved to just sit with me, content, even delighted, by my simple presence. Forty-five years together, and I still don't understand him. I look at pictures and I can't fathom what he's thinking, why he's smiling. Then, today, a friend and her beau looked at my profile on a dating site, and explained that I was doing it all wrong, and that I'd never find anyone like that. I need to be more assertive and confident, they say, and explain to any woman reading it why she should want to meet me. They found each other on that site, doing what they tell me to do, so they might be right, but I don't want to make all those changes. I'm so scared of promoting myself like that that I feel hollowed out with dread.

Isn't it odd that I feel so alien from my brother? We're exactly alike.

Comments

[vizsludraugas.livejournal.com]

My condolences on your loss.

[rap541.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear this, you know you're in my thought.