♥ For My Big Brother ♥

Soulful Reflection Of Grieve and Life

Me and my brother… Irish Twins

Welcome to Soulful Sunday 🤍

As always, Sundays are free. Free to read. Free to feel. Free to sit with me as I reflect out loud on the moments in my life that shaped me, broke me, and ultimately changed me.

Today’s reflection is deeply personal. This one took more courage than most to write.

There were pauses, tears, and moments I almost closed the page and walked away. But I stayed with it. And I’m glad I did.

This post is about love, loss, grief, and the quiet ways pain can transform us if we let it.

It’s about someone who mattered more to me than I’ve ever fully put into words until now.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading with care. And thank you for allowing me the space to share something this close to my heart.

Today’s Soulful Sunday is for my big brother.

He came into this world 2 weeks earlier than expected. January 11, 1979.
I was more stubborn and showed up 2 weeks late. February 3, 1980.

However, our actual due dates made us Irish twins. Our lives made us something deeper.

He was the only constant man in my entire life. And this past year without him on Earth has killed me.

• My father left.

• My stepfather abused.

• My husband abandoned.

• My friends betrayed.

But my brother stayed. Barely a year old when I arrived.

And from that day, he was always there. Always a part of my life. Always steady in a life that was rarely steady at all for either of us.

Today is his birthday. He would have turned 47.

Instead, I sit with the truth that his life ended far too soon.

Drugs had already taken their toll years before his death. One of his lungs collapsed back when he was in his twenties from a speed addiction.

He fought his way through addiction, though. He got clean at 45. He was trying.

But in the fall of 2023, pneumonia came like a thief in the night. And his lungs struggled to handle the infection.

Weeks of hospital stays began

Infection after infection. Medication after Medication. Our hope rising and falling, as none of the meds worked.

Finally, doctors intubated him so they could transport him to an infectious disease specialist hours away.

And again, weeks passed. They tried again and again to get him off the ventilator.

But… his lungs just couldn’t sustain.

He never could breathe on his own.

His one good lung became so infected that it collapsed too.

That was it.

We were left with no options that included mercy, except one.

Watching my brother take his last breaths was the hardest thing I have ever done.

There are no words big enough to hold that moment. No spiritual platitude that softens it.

You do not forget the sound. You do not forget the stillness after.

It has been eleven months since he passed.

The pain is still sharp.

Grief does not fade the way people promise. It just changes shape.

Some days it whispers. Some days it cuts. Some days it sits quietly beside me and reminds me of who he was to me. Who he still is.

And yet, this truth lives here too.

His death saved my life.

Losing him gave me the strength to walk completely away from my meth addiction. Completely. No justifications. No almosts. No exceptions.

It also gave me the clarity to leave an abusive, narcissistic relationship with a lifelong friend who was quietly offering me the open door to keep using meth.

I closed those doors and locked them.

I have not looked back. I never will. Because of him.

I refuse to let my dumb choices become someone else’s unbearable grief.

I refuse to make my loved ones stand at a bedside and watch me waste the days I have left on this earth.

My brother did not die in vain. He became my line in the sand. My final wake-up call.

My reason to choose differently.

Today, on his birthday, I honor him not just with tears, but with my life.

• With my sobriety.

• With my boundaries.

• With my decision to continue to do better.

To him: I miss you, big brother. Every day.

Thank you for being my constant.
Thank you for loving me when others failed.
Thank you for giving me the courage to live.

This Sunday is yours.

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If you made it all the way here, thank you.

Truly. Sitting with a story like this takes presence, and I don’t take that lightly.

Sharing pieces of my life like this is never easy, but it is honest. And honesty is what this space is built on.

Healing, reflection, desire, growth, and the messy middle of being human all live here together.

If you feel called to stay, I’d love to have you. You’re welcome to join my community as one of my free loves, where Soulful Sundays and reflections like this always remain open and accessible.

And if you want to go deeper with me, into the spicier, braver, more intimate layers of my writing, my paid loves help support this work and keep this space alive.

Either way, I’m grateful you’re here. I’m grateful you read. And I’m grateful for the connection.

This space exists because of community, and I’d be honored if you chose to be part of mine. —Teez 💋