I got to thinking just now about those "trigger" moments. By that I mean that you just never know when a certain song or conversation will trigger a memory-maybe a happy or funny memory, maybe a sad one. I had one of these moments a month or two after Evan's death. I had finally decided that I had to enter the "real world" again, so I was eating breakfast with two friends of mine. This is around the time that I was finally able to look at food again. I had taken about two bites when I overheard a conversation at a table near us. It was the waitress asking a little girl, around 3, if the baby with them was her baby brother. I was around 3 when Evan was born. Mom said she was afraid when she was pregnant with Evan, that I would be jealous when he was born, but she said I was like a little Mommy to him-that I just loved him so much. After two bites of my food, I put my fork down and I just couldn't stop the tears. I told them I would be waiting in the car, and I quickly made my exit.

The girl that was waxing my eyebrows the other day asked me if I had any brothers or sisters. How do I respond to that question now? I have never been an only child. I've always had a brother. Evan EXISTED, so I don't want to say it's just me. I told her that I did have a brother, and that he was killed in Iraq. She promptly offered me a discount on any service I wanted to have done there (My aunt, who lost her husband 10 years ago, jokes that she took advantage of the grieving widow as long as possible).

I'm jealous of people that have siblings now. I get upset when I see someone that I don't perceive as "appreciating" their sibling. I guess that's just part of it. Maybe it's not right, but it's how I feel.

Evan and I didn't always have the best relationship growing up. We had your typical "sibling rivalry". I am so thankful that over the last two years, we finally had a close relationship. Totally different. He told me he loved me every time we talked on the phone or through email. He changed completely when he joined the military, in a good way. It's difficult, because I am SO glad that we finally had that relationship. It would even more difficult now if it hadn't been mended. But we were finally friends. I finally had my brother back, and a sibling to go through life with me, that would always be there. That would be there to see me get married, and have children, and to help me take care of my parents when they got older. And all of that has been taken away from me. If I think about it all at once, it's overwhelming. The future. I guess that's why they say to take it one day at a time, one moment at a time.