No more'n a breath.

For me, October 10th is a day that sneaks up on a person. Not in the way that October 2nd might. On the first of the month, I don’t turn the page of the calendar and suddenly startle because the 2nd, now visible, is so much closer than it had seemed the day before.

No, October 10th isn’t like that; I’m always aware that it’s approaching.

On October 10th, and in the hours leading up to it, my emotions get wonky. The reason for this, of course, is because October 10th is the anniversary of my brother’s death. 

Tomorrow will mark five years without him. 

If Pip were alive today, he would be 38, which is the age I was when I lost him. 

“Lost” is perhaps the wrong word though. 

The following may seem off topic, but allow me to insert a brief side note:

I am someone who likes to categorize things into favorites. For whatever reason, my brain finds it necessary to choose favorites and then rank them, placing special emphasis on the top three favorites of each category. My favorite bands? Reel Big Fish, Dispatch, and Trampled By Turtles. My favorite songs? “Red Wing Blue Wing,” “Country Kid,” and “All the Debts I Owe.” My favorite books? To Kill A Mockingbird, Ordinary Grace, and Daisy Jones and the Six (the audio version). 

In my sophomore classes, we are currently finishing Ordinary Grace, which, as you now know from the previous paragraph, is my second-favorite book of all time. And the ending of Ordinary Grace? Well… the ending of Ordinary Grace is beautiful. 

Without giving away any major plot points, I am going to quote Warren Redstone, who says in the epilogue, “They’re never far from us, you know. … The dead. No more’n a breath. You let that last one go and you’re with them again.”

Someday, I know, I will be with Pip again. I’m not sure how… but our souls will once again collide and we will laugh and embrace and be the kindred spirits we were in life. So I haven’t lost Pip. Not entirely. I still have memories and photographs; I still have a couple of videos and a few voice recordings. And I have the knowledge that he may be gone from my current future… but I don’t believe that he’s gone forever.

Still.

That doesn’t mean I don’t miss him with my whole being when October 10th rolls around. He was, to use his own words, “a good egg.”