I Swear You Will Be Fine

Dear brother,

I had another ‘first’ in grief this week. We’re all on our elective period, which is the last stretch of Med school. Mum has been ridiculously accommodating (as always), so I’ve lived on a plane for the last few weeks. It also means that almost all my friends I’ve accumulated over the last 6 years in London are now in Southeast Asia. And because your sister is so popular, many are stopping in Singapore. It might also be because they know they’ll get free accommodation, but more because they like hanging out with me.

Most of my close friends in the UK have been in the picture years before you passed away. So they were there for the ranting about my annoying younger brother and your hunts for autographs when we went to concerts together. They were also there for the funeral, watching it online, and babysitting me for the months/years that followed.

For the last 18 months, I have not had to explain to any friends why they wouldn’t see my brother if they came home. For the handful of friends I’ve made in the last few months, as far as they knew, you were playing piano and going to the gym as always.

However, of the multiple groups coming to stay over the next month, the last consists of two who did not know they wouldn’t be seeing you. Mum threatened me enough that when I saw them over the last week, I knew I had to tell them. My flatmates were so sweet – they offered to engineer multiple situations where it would be the right setting to talk about it, and even offered to do it themselves.

But there’s another weird thing that’s happened since you passed – timing seems much clearer. It’s like your shoes outside the house. We just knew when it was the right time to bring them in. So when our group got split into 2 boats in a beautiful river in Ninh Binh, I offered to join one of the boys plus a random Croatian couple. And maybe I sound insane, but it felt like you were right there with me. It probably helped that when my friend’s jaw looked like it was about to drop, I could turn around and look at the beautiful scenery.

He asked,
“How comfortable are you talking about it?”
“About what? I love talking about Josh, it’s my favourite thing. But I won’t talk about how/what happened.”
“How do you feel about it? Do you want to talk about that?”
“Don’t worry, I have a therapist.”

So for dropping a bombshell on a 24-year-old boy that I’ve only been friends with for a couple months, I’m not sure how much better it could have gone. I think I technically dropped that bombshell on the Croatian couple too, who later made it known that they spoke English and one was a paediatrician at GOSH. LOL.

The other friend was a bit trickier. He shares your name and, for some reason, has curly hair and constantly sings. And for some reason, right before I left Vietnam, everyone else was asleep. So we got lunch. Still, it didn’t feel like the right time. When we got back to the AirBnB, the other friend coming to Singapore was in the living room. As I began to bring it up, this Josh kept nodding. To the point that I was like – do you already know this? This Josh is close to some of my best friends, but they’re not the type to share something this personal without asking me. Turns out the other friend who’s going to visit had told him so that I wouldn’t need to deal with it again. He also revealed that that was why the day before, he’d asked me what your birthday was instead of how old you are. I nearly cried. Nothing new.

I’m heading into a new bit of life where now, any close friends I make will need this ‘confession’ from me. I don’t think I can be close to someone now unless I can talk about you with them, which also means talking about how much I miss you, and how hard it is coming home and not seeing you at your desk, or playing Succession on the piano, or fighting for the music in the car, or laughing at me in the gym. So, for a ‘first try’, thank you. I could feel you right there, getting me through it. If this is your way of vetting whoever comes into my life from now on, fair enough. I would’ve preferred you did it by just telling me who you don’t like, but ok.

Love you very very much,
Jess