What would he have made of this?
It perhaps says something about the ‘bigness’ of suicide loss that it takes a Pandemic to block it out of mind. Up until last Friday, I’d not thought about my brother for a good few weeks – that is, I’d not had the daily flash-through-the mind reminder of his used-to-exist status or the how-he-died detail I’ve come to expect. Ordinarily, I’d view this as progress, as a sign of relief-at-last and acceptance being achieved. But when I look at the wider circumstances impacting life at present, I’m not sure I can claim this as being the reality – it’s just that a head only has so much space to accommodate massive life-changing events, and right now, in its process of prioritising what needs to be addressed or thought about first, my brother’s death has, however surprisingly, been demoted. I felt, honestly, a bit guilty about this, a bit confused, having grown used to having Martin ‘still there’ in some manner. I've been living in a 'new normal' long before that was someth