8:15 p.m. - 02/21/02
keeper.
dear Tracy.
I know we came around to talking about you in a kind of backward way, considering it is such a significant day and all. I thought I'd bring it up with her, but you know how it is sometimes. sometimes there just aren't the right words. or enough words. or something. but then when she started asking so many questions about the suicides, and about the different times in my life I've considered going through with it, I was just overwhelmed. there was a curling in my stomach, the turning in over my shoulders, the struggle to gain back enough air. I know you were there, and you know all this. I'm not sure how you manage it or why you bother, but I know you're with me still; you promised we'd get through this together, and I know that, free from illness as you must be now, you keep your promises. I still wonder about where you are and how much of you is there, and if your personality has been sacrificed for the welfare of your soul. I always did think too much; you were so much better at being simple, looking at the overall picture of thing. Sunlight was sunlight; you never bothered brooding over the clouds hiding under every ray.
I hope my tears don't bother you. I don't want you to feel any guilt for the pain you put me through. I know Dave said sometimes that suicide is selfish, but I would never think of you as selfish. I know that your decision was illness-induced, and that you did what you did out of desperation. I saw the look on your face the day I confronted Brittany for trying to kill herself, and I know you had no intention of hurting us this way. Please know that I cry to honor you, to remember you, and because at the basic core of myself, I miss you so terribly. You should never have been the one to die, and in such a horrible hopeless way. You were supposed to make it; you would have made it. You were supposed to get the chance to know how beautiful you were, and what a gift that knowledge was. I'm glad that you know it now; I think you must know it now. And I'm glad that sometimes when I see you in my dreams, your body is strong and healthy and glowing in its skin. I'm glad for you. I'm angry for what happened, but never with you.
I hope you'll forgive me someday. For being angry about you leaving when you promised we'd make it through to the other side of this together. I know I left you first; I was the one who lost touch first. I'm so sorry that I wasn't there the night that you needed me, needed someone, so badly. I don't pretend there was anything I could have done to help you, but I'm sorry I didn't know to call and try. I'm sorry I didn't know the right ways to love you and take care of you and show you how much you meant to this world. You were so brave, Tracy, and so important. The present tense creeped up on me today, and though the "mistake" tore at my heart, I wonder if it isn't true. We aren't separated, Tracy; we can't be - if only because I can't deal with it. What happened to you is terrible; it's tragic in the least romantic sense. It's jagged. But you are my teacher, my inspiration, and when I cry, I can remember all the reasons you were those things. How you were those things long before you took the fatal pills.
I love you always. Before you were gone, two months past, a year from now, I love you. And I hope with my whole heart that you are safely dancing somewhere beautiful.
m.
"i can't begin to explain/ all of the pain we had known/ and i can't begin to explain/ all of the courage you'd shown/ after all there were no goodbyes/ this ending was not what i'd figured/ but my hands were not cold enough/ to pull the trigger"
-my brother
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