Can You Hear Me?

“Can you hear me? ‘Cause I’m lost.

And I may never come back again.

And while my heart keeps holding on,

I know I’ll never be the same again.” 

I go back and forth between thinking “I’ll be okay” and “I’ll never be okay.” I can’t even explain to you the pain of losing a sibling. I feel like a part of me died with Austin. Like a gaping hole has been ripped from my chest, and I’m bleeding out onto the floor. I don’t know who I am without him. Your siblings are supposed to be your lifetime companions. Even when we’re distant, the bond between siblings is still fierce and cannot be matched. They are the ones you spent your entire childhood with… the ones who know you on a deeper level. No matter how many fights or screaming matches you’ve had, you love them more than anything in this world.

Something broke inside me the day I had to announce that Austin was gone. Saying it out loud made it real in a way nothing else had before, like the words themselves shattered something I didn’t even know I was still holding together. It was always Kayla, Erynn, and Austin… three names that belonged together. Now there’s a void where he should be, an absence that follows me everywhere, quiet but impossible to ignore.

I don’t know how to face the world now that my loss has taken on such a solid, undeniable shape. Grief isn’t just something I feel. It’s something I carry into every conversation, every moment of normalcy that feels undeserved. If I’m being honest, I don’t know how to move forward at all. I still can’t reconcile the fact that he is really gone. Some part of me keeps expecting him to come back, as if this is all some cruel misunderstanding. Instead, he dies every single day for me… in memories, in reminders, in moments when reality hits all over again.

Every traumatic event I’ve had to endure in this nightmare feels like another blow, each one driving the truth deeper into my heart: this is permanent. The finality of his death is relentless, and it leaves me wondering how much more I’m supposed to take. When will it stop? How many times do I have to say goodbye to my brother before the pain stops feeling so endless?

And the yearning… because that might be the hardest part. The yearning for my brother is never-ending, and it aches. I find myself wishing him back to life every hour of the day, replaying impossible hopes in my mind. I wish I could hug him tightly, feel his presence again, and never let go. There is a sharp, undeniable pain in knowing that I will never see him again, a finality that settles heavy in my chest.

I’m not a spiritual or religious person, which makes this loss feel even more complicated. I don’t know what happens to us when we die, and I don’t have the comfort of certainty to lean on. We tell ourselves that we’ll see our loved ones again on the other side, that this separation is only temporary, but what if that belief is just a story we tell ourselves to survive the weight of a lifetime without them? What if I never get to see or speak to Austin ever again? That thought makes the permanence of loss feel unbearable, like a door that has closed forever.

Still, hope lingers, even when it feels fragile. I can only hope that the other side is real, that somewhere beyond what I understand, he exists in peace, reunited with my grandfather and my Uncle Brian. And maybe that hope, however uncertain, is the only thing that softens the edges of the pain.

I know I’m going to be sad for the rest of my life, not in a way that fades or resolves, but in a way that settles in my bones and stays. I don’t know what to tell people when they ask me how I’m doing, because the word sad itself feels too small. It doesn’t begin to explain the depth of it. This sadness has changed me. It’s not always loud, but it’s always there. It’s the kind of sadness I will carry with me until my last breath, woven into who I am now. Not because I want to hold onto it, but because love like this doesn’t disappear… it transforms.

I also don’t know how I’m supposed to move forward in life. I feel stuck in time, like my world stopped spinning the moment I got that first phone call. It makes me so angry that the world, and everyone in it, keeps going while my own world has shattered into a million pieces. Part of me doesn’t want to keep going, because doing so means accepting that Austin is really gone. That I have to live in a world without him. If I start doing the things I used to do before, it makes this feel normal, and there is nothing normal about having to live without my brother. I know, in reality, that moving forward means carrying him with me in a different way now, but I’m not ready to accept that yet. I have to learn how to live my life for my brother.

People say I’m strong, but I don’t even know what that means. Do they think that because they don’t see my inner turmoil, there’s something inspirational or hopeful about grief? There isn’t. It’s just survival. You don’t know that I’m two seconds away from losing it, how exhausted I am from simply existing, how I can barely find the energy to leave the house or do anything at all. I’m doing the bare minimum. I’m going through the motions, not because I want to, but because I have to. The rage, the sadness, the confusion, the guilt, and the love with nowhere to go all live inside me. I feel like I’m going insane… 

Understand that I am not okay, and that my grief is always just beneath the surface. This isn’t something I can hide very well. I won’t be okay for years. I’m worried about the unknown journey this grief will take me on. This is the most painful loss I’ve ever known, and I don’t recognize the version of myself that exists inside it yet. Going home is hard, especially when I see his empty room, frozen in time, holding the echoes of who he was and who he was supposed to be. Every familiar space feels altered now, heavier with what’s missing.

I’m scared of what future holidays and birthdays will look like without him, because they were already difficult for me even before this loss. Now they feel almost impossible to imagine. I worry about how my family will survive something so devastating. I can’t begin to comprehend the pain of grieving your child, and my heart breaks endlessly for my parents. Their grief feels immeasurable, and watching them carry it only deepens my own. I worry about my sister, too… about how deeply she feels everything, and how she’s expected to keep going while caring for her two babies during this unbearable time. I can barely function without children depending on me, so I can’t imagine the strength it takes for her to show up every day when her heart is breaking.

And yet, even in all of this fear, I know we have each other. We have to pick one another up when the weight becomes too much, to hold each other steady through the worst moments. We said we would live for Austin, and that promise matters. I know we’re entering the hardest period of our lives, one that will test us in ways we can’t yet see. All I can do is hope that the love surrounding us and the support we have to lean on will be enough to carry us through.

I try to remember the good times, too. The moments when I snapped photos of Austin on my ancient iPhone because he hated having his picture taken. He’d run into the other room, and we’d laughed hysterically. The times he got mad at my sister and me over “little brother syndrome”, and he would pull his wrestling moves on us or refuse to play Mario Party if he wasn’t winning. The nights we spent hanging out and watching dumb movies like Jackass.

I’m sharing this because I promised myself I would be better for Austin. I don’t want to keep hiding the parts of me that are hurting anymore. For a long time, I’ve taken it upon myself to “fix” everything on my own, and maybe I’m too independent for my own good. I’ve learned how to carry pain quietly, how to manage it without letting it spill over. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I want to let others in, even when it feels uncomfortable. I know it won’t be easy, but I will try… try for Austin. I don’t want to suffer in silence anymore.

It’s hard because I’m not an outwardly emotional person, and I’ve never been very social. I live with a lot of anxiety, and because of that, I often feel overlooked or misunderstood. Over time, I built a system within myself to withstand the storm… to survive quietly. But to my own detriment, I’ve become stubborn about letting people in. Being ignored for so long taught me to rely only on myself, and now I’m caught in that cycle. I hate talking about my feelings over and over again, especially when everything is still so traumatic. Writing, though… that’s where I can be honest. So here I am.

All I ask of people is space and patience. I need a lot of time alone to process and grieve. That’s how I’ve survived so far. I also need people not to make assumptions about how I feel or what I need in any given moment. Some days I’m quiet. Some days I’m distant. Some days I’m completely overwhelmed. I want to be seen and heard without having to explain or justify myself, without pressure to participate, perform, or pretend. I just want the freedom to grieve in the way that feels most honest to me.

Please don’t be offended by the intensity of my emotions. I don’t always have the space or energy to empathize with people’s issues. Sometimes, because of the magnitude of this loss, other problems feel distant or insignificant, not because they don’t matter, but because people can eventually move past them, and this is something I can’t move past. That realization can make me feel cruel, even though it isn’t intentional. I’m not mad at you, but I am angry at the world. There are days when I feel like setting the world on fire. I’d honestly prefer if people didn’t constantly bring their issues to me while I’m grieving. My nervous system is already overwhelmed, and this isn’t helping.

If I need help, I will ask for it. I don’t have the energy to always know what I need or to figure it out on the spot. Most days, I can barely think straight. It’s a miracle that my brain can switch to autopilot when I’m at work. Please know that love and support do not go unnoticed. I’m just in survival mode for the foreseeable future. Grief is both mentally and physically exhausting.

I understand grief and how it works. I don’t need anyone to explain the process to me. I also understand that many people don’t know how to sit with grief, so please be careful with your words. Sometimes people unknowingly cause more harm than comfort. I’ve already experienced that. Not everything needs to be said. Sometimes people just need to read the room.

If you become tired of seeing me sad, or wondering why I can’t show up the way I used to, I’m not sorry. Grief makes people uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t. I’m not going to package my pain into something more digestible to make others feel okay. That wouldn’t be fair to the people I’ve lost or to me. No one should have to pretend they’re okay just to ease someone else’s discomfort. I won’t do that.

I’m grateful for the people in my life who make me feel like I don’t have to do this alone. I know so many people feel isolated in their grief, like they can’t be truly vulnerable. And don’t assume someone is “over it” just because you can’t see their pain. They are still grieving six months later, a year later, five years later. The loss of a loved one isn’t something you will ever get over. It’s just something you learn to live with.

Most importantly, I am not the same person I was before I lost my brother. I am a different version of myself… one I am still trying to understand.

Just know that I won’t be “okay” for a very long time.