There are moments when I am sitting with my husband’s family, listening to everyone laugh and share stories from their childhood.
They talk about the things they did together as kids. They tease each other about old memories. They say, “Remember when?” and everyone immediately knows exactly what they are talking about.
I smile.
I laugh with them.
I genuinely love hearing their stories, and I love seeing them happy.
But inside, sometimes I want to crumble.
I want to cry.
I want to hug my brother.
Because while I am listening to them reminisce, I cannot help but think about all the “remember when” conversations I will never get to have with Jesse again.
I will never be able to text him when something reminds me of our childhood.
I will never be able to sit across from him and say, “Do you remember when we did that?”
I will never hear him tell the same story differently than I remember it, argue over the details, or laugh about something only the two of us fully understood.
I miss all of it.
Every silly memory.
Every happy memory.
Even the sad ones.
I miss having someone here who lived through those chapters of my life with me.
And I miss knowing that we should still be creating new chapters together.
Joy and Grief Can Exist at the Same Time
It may be difficult to understand unless you have experienced a loss like this, but joy and grief can be felt at the same time.
I can be happy for another family while feeling devastated for my own.
I can laugh at someone’s story while silently thinking about Jesse.
I can enjoy a gathering while also feeling an ache so deep that part of me wants to go home, crawl into bed, and finally let myself fall apart.
Those feelings do not cancel each other out.
My sadness does not mean I resent anyone else’s happiness.
It does not mean I want people to stop sharing their memories or celebrating the people they love.
It simply means their happiness sometimes touches a sore place inside me.
An ordinary conversation can suddenly send me down a road of memories. One minute I am listening to people laugh, and the next I am thinking about the fact that my brother is dead.
I am thinking about the conversations we will never have.
The milestones he will never reach.
The milestones in my life he will never be here to see.
The children he should have watched grow up.
The future he was supposed to have.
The future we were all supposed to have with him in it.
I do not want what someone else has to be taken away from them.
I just desperately wish my family still had it too.
Grief Changed More Than One Relationship
Losing Jesse did not only mean losing one of my brothers.
In many ways, it changed my relationship with my surviving brother too.
Before Jesse died, Jeb and I were best friends. He was also close with my husband, just as Jesse was. We were a family with our own rhythm, relationships, memories, and roles.
Jesse and I were five years apart. Jeb and Jesse were only three years apart, and as two boys growing up together, they naturally shared a different kind of closeness.
Then Jesse was killed.
And it felt as though the binding that held our family together came undone.
I think of our family like a book.
We each had our own chapters. Those chapters were constantly changing, growing, and connecting with one another.
Then Jesse died.
His chapter ended far too soon.
Pages were ripped from the book, and the chapters belonging to everyone who loved him were permanently changed.
Our family is not the same.
We will never be the same.
Grief has affected each of us differently, and those differences have changed our family dynamics in painful and complicated ways.
Jeb and I experienced the same loss, but we did not experience it in the same way. We have handled it differently. Sometimes it feels as though we barely know each other anymore.
There is grief underneath the grief.
I grieve Jesse, but I also grieve the relationship I once had with my living brother.
When I see Jeb, part of me misses who we were before Jesse died. I miss our friendship. I miss the version of our family that existed when all three of us were still here.
Of course I feel pressure to repair that relationship.
He is my last living brother.
We are both going to carry the loss of Jesse and the loss of the family we once knew for the rest of our lives.
But grief does not always bring people closer together.
Sometimes it creates distance between people who are each trying to survive something unbearable in their own way.
The Mask Grieving People Learn to Wear
I have become very good at hiding what is happening inside me.
At gatherings, I can smile.
I can laugh.
I can participate in conversations.
I can listen to stories about siblings, childhood memories, family vacations, future plans, and growing old together.
Then I can go home, wait until my children are asleep, sit with my husband, and finally let the mask slip.
People may assume that because I am laughing, I am comfortable and okay.
That is understandable. It is not anyone else’s responsibility to regulate or monitor my emotions.
How I manage my grief is my responsibility.
I never want people to feel as though they have to change how they speak around me. I do not want anyone to stop telling stories, sharing memories, or appreciating the family they still have.
But I do wish people understood that my experience of those conversations may be very different from theirs.
While someone else is laughing about a childhood memory, I may be thinking about my brother.
While siblings are teasing one another, I may be longing to hear Jesse laugh.
While a family talks about the future, I may be thinking about every milestone Jesse will never experience and every milestone he will never be here to see me reach.
You do not have to walk on eggshells around someone who is grieving. We do not expect you to stop sharing your memories, celebrating your family, or enjoying the people you love.
But a little awareness can matter, especially when conversations center on everything their family no longer gets to have.
Just because someone is smiling and participating does not mean the conversation is not touching a very painful place inside them.
Sometimes being mindful simply means understanding that a grieving person may become quiet.
They may need space.
They may laugh with you and cry later.
They may be completely present while another part of them is somewhere else, remembering the person who should still be there.
It Is Not Bitterness
Since Jesse died, I notice other families differently.
I look at families that appear whole and perfect, and sometimes I feel jealous.
But jealousy is not really the right word.
It is longing.
It is grief for what my family should still have.
It is watching siblings laugh together and remembering that I was supposed to have that for the rest of my life.
It is seeing a family that seems carefree and missing the days when my own family could laugh without an unbearable absence sitting in the middle of everything.
It is wanting to feel that sense of wholeness again, even while knowing we never will.
That does not make me bitter.
It does not make me ungrateful for the people I still have.
It means I loved my brother, his life mattered, and his absence changed every part of ours.
Grief is love with nowhere to go.
There is no timeline for it.
There is no point when Jesse’s absence will suddenly stop affecting the way I experience families, siblings, celebrations, or ordinary conversations.
Living Life Like Jesse
At Jesse’s Justice, we often say, “Live Life Like Jesse.”
Jesse lived life fully.
He laughed loudly. He loved deeply. He made memories. He enjoyed the people around him.
So we try to keep living for him.
I can constantly miss my brother while still trying to be present in the life happening around me.
I can grieve while raising my children.
I can ache for the family we lost while appreciating the family I have.
I can laugh at the table while wishing Jesse were sitting there laughing too.
Living fully does not mean I have moved on from him.
It does not mean I miss him less.
In many ways, continuing to live is something I do for him.
Joy and grief do not take turns.
Sometimes they sit beside each other at the same table.
And when they do, I am learning to make room for both.
From Jesse’s Justice
No one should have to walk through grief alone.
Through free grief resources, advocacy, education, and community support, we strive to honor Jesse’s life by helping others navigate theirs.
If this article resonated with you, please consider sharing it. You never know who may need these words today.
🖤♥️ For Jesse. For Justice.