Saturday 10th July 2021. As someone who notoriously forgets key dates (unless they’re mine!) that one is engraved on my brain and my heart forever. It is the day I kissed my brother on his ashen forehead and said goodbye for the rest of this life. And it is a day that, if ever I needed it, cements the whole purpose of this site and my desire to write and to be helpful to others.

If ever there was a moment and a time to know myself and to be comfortable and bold to be myself, it has been since that date. On the 10th July 2021, I heard myself repeatedly tell paramedics and police that they could talk to me as “I was the most removed.” A statement that was an attempt to be helpful but was also incredibly naïve. Naïve because the reality is I am not at all removed from the situation. And never will be. I have never had nor could ever have imagined a life without my brother in it and the reality is there are not many people who can say that with the pain and hurt my family and I are experiencing. I’m not saying that to put others down or to diminish any relationship they may have had with my brother. But I am saying that to mark the one I had.

In the days following my brother’s death, I was shocked, angered and upset by the number of times I heard somebody tell me they probably knew things about my brother that I didn’t. Delivered in a way that was intended to be helpful but often received in a way of claiming a place in his life, ahead of me. At first it pushed my button of insecurity that my brother and I weren’t close. But what does that even mean? We weren’t best friends. We didn’t do everything together. But we did do family together. We did have an entire life together and what I have come to see is that we did share each other’s lives. As people would tell me these shocking things I supposedly didn’t know, not once was I shocked because to my surprise, I did know. I may not have known all the nitty gritty details and I may not have been there in the moments described but I realised that my brother had shared with me all the important facts of his life and in a way that was more honest than some of the stories I heard. He trusted me and I trusted him and that was the absolute core of our relationship. However different we were – and believe me, we were! – he has always been here to share in my life and I in his.

And I have found a new security in that over the past few weeks. It is another piece of my self-worth and self-understanding puzzle that I have been able to glue in. It isn’t a new piece because I actually came to realise it a long time ago – that my attempts to impress my big bro were futile. He never cared about how I dressed or what job I did. He cared only about if I was happy and safe. And that is exactly why me and Mr P asked him to marry us almost ten years ago and why I know it was one of those proud moments in his life.

So why am I writing about this? Because shock and grief does funny things to you and in those moments you HAVE to hold on to what you know is true. There have been times when I’ve worried I’m not crying enough when I talk to others about my brother. There have been times when I feel like I have had to justify and defend the times I’ve cried too much. There have been times I have mentally ordered people into a hierarchy of grief and never put myself at the top. And the truth is, it’s all been a waste of time and emotion. Because it is so much better, for me, to be honest, confident and bold in my relationships. That’s what I encourage others to do through this site and that’s just what I have to remind myself to do, on a daily basis, at the moment.

My grief is my grief. In the same way that my relationship with my brother was mine. Nobody will ever experience either of those things in the same way I have/am. So I don’t have to apologise for it, boast about it or explain it. And neither do you. If you are experiencing the ‘loss’ (for want of a better word!) of somebody then the same goes for you. Practically, for me, that has meant acknowledging that my usual go-to people may not be the right ones to fully melt-down on right now. Not because they don’t care or won’t understand but because they (my Mum, Dad, Mr P, etc) have their own grief and their own relationship with my brother to be proud of and to grieve. I have had friends who have listened and allowed me to be a complete drain without judgement or solution and that has been more valuable and more healing to me than I can thank them for. But I’m also realising that organisations like Cruse and Balloons, (if, like me, you’ve also been supporting little people through their grief, alongside your own) are invaluable. Because they give you that space to be selfish in your situation. And whilst selfishness is never something I would often condone, there are times when it is absolutely necessary!

If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard the phrase “be kind to yourself” in the last ten weeks, I’d be writing this from a much more glamorous place right now! But maybe I’ll come back to that one next time! For now… know yourself and be yourself, even in the depths of despair and pain. As I said to Mr P several weeks ago, when lots of people had told me and him to stop caring about others so much… this is Little Miss Particular grief. I can’t do it any other way.