Grief is such a tricky thing. I will have an ok moment, or day even, and think, you know, I am going to get through this. I am strong. I got through today without sobbing hysterically. I'll even be able to laugh, or smile at a funny or pleasant memory of Evan, without all the pain, for that split second.

And other moments, I feel as though I am right back to where I started. I am so overcome with grief, that I find it difficult to breathe. I am gasping for air. I don't want to live without my brother. I want him to come home, to walk through that door, and just make this nightmare finally be over.

It's a roller coaster. I didn't know much about grief until I experienced it first hand. When I saw someone in public that had just been through loss, I always thought to myself, they are doing so well. I would think about how big of a wreck I would be, and that there was no way I could handle myself in that way if I had been through what they had. Now I know what happens behind closed doors. I am here to tell you: the fact that someone that has been through a sudden loss can put on a face while in public means nothing. We are basketcases, in fact, all of us that have been through it, just many times, in the comfort of our home. All of us know that's the farthest from how we really feel. We scream, we cry, Mom and I will meet in the kitchen at 2 AM when neither of us can sleep. Many times we'll be in different rooms, and I'll either hear her crying from another room, or she'll hear me crying. Just because we have the ability to hold it together in the outside world doesn't mean we don't come home and close the door and collapse in tears. That's precisely how I got through the first few weeks I went back to teaching, every single day.

Nothing seems normal in those first few weeks. It's a lot of firsts. I literally had a panic attack the first time I went in public. It's the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. You walk into a grocery store, or a bank-what seem like normal activities. And it doesn't make any sense, because everyone else is going on like nothing has happened, and your whole world has been turned upside down. My world is in stand still mode, and everyone is acting normal. My brother is gone, forever, and you are acting like nothing has happened. Of course, these are people that don't know I just lost my brother (unless they recognized me from my picture on the front page of the paper-believe it or not, this has happened a couple times from complete strangers) But it really is the most bizarre, uncomfortable experience ever.


I still wake up in the middle of the night, quite often, and check my phone to see if Evan called. You see, he always called in the middle of the night when he was in Iraq, so I always tried to keep my phone on at night, because if I missed it, that was it. There's no calling someone back in Iraq! I was always so upset when I missed a phone call from him. In fact, anytime he called, I saved his voicemail until my phone forced me to delete it, because I thought to myself..what if this is the last time I heard his voice. I always had this feeling..

Call it a premonition, or maybe it is just every military family's worst nightmare, but I always had a feeling it would happen. I made a point to write Evan often, and every time, I told him how proud I was of him, that he was my hero, and how much I missed and loved him. I can never doubt that he knew how proud we all were of him and how much we loved him, because we told him all the time. I guess it doesn't matter whether or not I "knew", but..

We also got an email from him, the day before he was killed. He wrote that he knew Mosul, where he was stationed, was on the news, and that it was a little more dangerous than he thought, but that he still felt relatively safe. He also wrote that he had a nightmare-this would have been the last night of sleep he had-and he said he woke up jumping on his bed, screaming. That he was ok, but it had scared him. He ended with his standard, "I'm fine. Tell Mom and Alice not to worry. Look forward to seeing you guys in April". He knew us all too well, and was always concerned that Mom and I were worrying about him too much.

But this nightmare haunts me. This is what I think about every night, when I put my head on my pillow. I'm sure many of them have nightmares-I cannot imagine what they see over there and go through. I know many come back with post traumatic stress disorder.

But I cannot help but wonder if he somehow knew. I cannot help but cry hysterically when I think of Evan being scared. The thought of this makes me so overcome with emotion that I feel physical pain. I don't know how to deal when these thoughts enter my mind. I don't know what to do. Nothing changes it. Nothing changes the fact that he had this nightmare right before he died, and that he told us about it.

For now, I will try to rest, and hope that tonight is a night that sleep comes.