I think on any given day, a person can find themselves existing somewhere in between the envelope of emotion described by the title of this post. It usually goes without saying that depending on which side of the bed you wake, it will define the distance which is spread between these two end points of emotion. Today is a day where no matter what side of the bed I woke up on I would still be extremely close to both endpoints depending on the time of the day as I oscillate back and forth like a pendulum of explosive emotion.

It was five years ago that I lost my brother in a uniquely unfair and strangely surreal manner. While I would like to provide the painful rehash of the tragic story for people reading here that don’t know the details, it is difficult at this time to describe in the painstakingly intricate details which I am known for writing. So instead, I’ll focus on brevity when retelling the story. My little brother was driving home from work in Tacoma, Washington on Monday April 5th, 2004 when he unexpectedly passed away at the wheel of his metallic blue Subaru WRX. Quickly and cruelly, an aneurysm in his brain caused the unanticipated loss of life. The car drifted across the lane of oncoming traffic, into a ditch, flipped, rolled over, struck a fence post and rested completely totaled in a horse pasture. He lay there in that moist Washington spring field until aid vehicles took him to the hospital. He was gone before the car even left the road.

I heard the news after a long day of work in Los Angeles. I was pissed he hadn’t called me over the weekend. The phone rings and that was not the call I expected to get. It never is. You can’t prepare for news like that. Five years ago. A lot has changed over the years with the addition of Son #1 and Son #2. But it never fails that I can, in an instant, think about just giving up and burying my truck into a guardrail. I have seen enough doctors to know that this is not the answer. Plus I have responsibilities now.


It’s kind of funny that going through life, you always feel like you have things figured out. Especially if you have a sibling, you expect them to ALWAYS be there for you to assist in life changing decisions, talk through dramatic issues, be there for the birth of his two nephews, and take care of family as they grow older. I took for granted that he would always be there. I spent years leaning on him for support and counseling him when he needed self confidence in set backs he was experiencing. I always knew life was full of surprises but always felt I could handle the speed bumps along the way because I would always have my brother to lean on. He had the objectivity that I lacked and I had the emotion that he wanted. I couldn’t have been more wrong with the script of my life.

Every smile has led to a cry these last few years. The first few months are definitely the hardest as you try to figure out where to go next. But with time, as cliché as it sounds, you learn to acclimate to the new landscape of your life and you begin to reflect in a healthy manner and focus on all of the great memories rather than the dark future of the unknown. My little brother was months short of his 25th birthday when he passed away. It just seems like it was far too soon for this to even be fathomable. He had just graduated college in 2002 and was just launching into his career in an economy not much different than what we are seeing now. It was a post-9/11 era. I really felt like he had the potential to do great things. He had so much more focus and effort than I did at that age. I had the passion and the never-say-die and never-be-defeated attitude. He was smarter, he was more strategic, and he chose his battles better. He was v2.0.

When you see potential like that AND it is your only brother, you can’t help question ‘What the f*ck?’ Is there some sort of strange lesson to learn here? And you know what? I have been finding out that there is. It is tough to quantify at times but rarely do I go through some sort of ordeal or deliberation and not think about him and his advice. I have learned to reflect on the past and respect it. With that I have learned acceptance. So it has been five painfully long years.


But instead of despair and depression, I want to celebrate the bitter-sweet short life of my little brother. While his existence here in physical form seems unreasonably short, the heaviness of the relationship and the memories left behind are the sweet nectar of his life that we hold onto now. I now realize that I am lucky enough to have had a sibling relationship this deep and this important. I worry at times that I don’t do him respect in his absence. However, I’ve realized that in my constant internal struggle to wonder why I don’t feel as shitty as I used to, I’ve learned to accept that this is the path and the memories of my brother have become the code which my life is steered by. And now we work with the boys to know their uncle in more than just stories and pictures, but in a way of life and in a way of compassion. Life with out my brother has been difficult to adjust to, but a life with out the memories of my brother would be a much worse existence. I am grateful for the time I had.