Matt

7-12 to 7-15. Three days of hell.

I’m in the Providence nursing home, at the foot of my 92-year-old grandmother’s bed, watching her struggle for each breath — for the next fleeting moment of coherence.

My brother calls my mom, who’s sitting less than five feet from me, and lays it on thick. Her words.

I leave around 12:20, 12:30, I don’t even know. There’s an uneasy feeling sitting in my stomach. I brush it off.

The next day I go back to gram. It’s late in the evening when it hits us that no one has heard from Matt. It’s me, my mom, my daughter, and Grandma in that room, and not one of us can get ahold of him. I call the people he had plans with — he never showed. No one had spoken to my brother since 12:34 that morning.

We send my dad to Matt’s. The front door was locked, but the side door and the gate were both unlocked. Which was odd.

It was my brother’s first weekend without his kids.

It turned out to be his last. My dad found him moments later, and my entire world came crashing fucking down around me. You know that scene where the T-1000 is nothing but a thin string of a body from his head to his waist? That’s exactly how the fuck I felt. Like the biggest failure alive. Like my own brother couldn’t even count on me. Like there was a massive gaping hole where my torso should be.

He was going through a divorce. And it was his first weekend without his kids.

Either one of those alone is enough to break a man. Add in all the other weight he was carrying. We really thought he’d be ok — he was cleaning, making real headway in every part of his life. But the light he saw, he mistook for a train instead of the end of the tunnel. And he made a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Then on the 15th, the last of those three days, we lost gram. Ninety-two. Dementia finally took her. My brother and my grandmother — gone in the same three days.

I kept telling him: stand up for yourself. In time, it’s all water under the bridge. Hell, look at my ex and me now. You’ll make it through this. I know it’s a lot, but it’s ok. You’ll adjust. And that light — it’s not a fucking train. I kept pushing him toward the positives. Pushing him not to go where I’d already been.

And I failed.

But I can’t blame myself. That’s one of the things I’m learning — to extend myself the same grace I hand everyone else. To turn my what ifs into even ifs. Do I still struggle with the guilt, the weight, missing every bit of him? Every goddamn second of every day.

And I know this next part is going to sound copy-pasted. It’s not.

If you or someone you know is struggling, reach out. You are not a burden. Neither are they.

If tonight feels especially heavy, go here right now: the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org.