An Open Letter to my Brothers

Dear Tom & Andy,

I would like to start by apologizing for my lack of communication these last 12 years. As you know, I've been busy being sick and going to school and making a general irrelevance of my life. I know you know all this already, it's not like you're not paying attention, but I just needed to say it in case you didn't know. When I say "general irrelevance", I'm speaking broadly. Not everything I've done since 1999 has been irrelevant, per se. I helped the hungry in Utah this fall by participating in the food drive... between 2006 and 2008 I made hundreds of people happy by producing beautiful wedding flowers... among other things. I think the phrase "general irrelevance" is pretty accurate now that I think about it.

Anyway, I've been thinking about you guys a lot lately. I usually do at this time of the year, with the big three upon us. Christmas usually isn't that bad, and Andy, your birthday is pretty bearable because it's New Years Day and napping helps, but the 6th, that day is the worst. It's hell leading up to it, pretending nothing is wrong when in reality, every thing is wrong and every waking thought is taken up by either thinking about it or trying to come up with things to prove you're not thinking about it all the time. When January 7th rolls around, it's a relief, because it's a full 365 days until I have to deal with January 6th again.

As I've been thinking about you these last few weeks, I've been recalling the last time we saw each other. I just want to tell you that if I had it to do over again, I wouldn't let the last thing I said to you be "Do you need anything else out of the bathroom? I need to get in the shower." I mean, I was 16, so I was pretty self involved, and how was I supposed to know that I wouldn't see you again? I couldn't have predicted that you wouldn't come back from California, well, at least not in a state that we could converse. I didn't know that in a weeks' time, a tragedy of this magnitude would knock my world off its axis forever. That is a little dramatic, I'll admit. Maybe not forever, but it certainly changed things. No, if I had it to do over again, I'd tell both of you that I love you, and nothing could ever change that. I'd tell you Tom, that that one night we went and did your Christmas shopping, and went to Alberto's to get chips and gaucamole was one of the funnest nights I'd ever spent with you. And Andy, I'd tell you how sorry I am for being so rude to you when you came home. Then I'd make you cookies to take on your trip and I'd stand in the lane and watch you drive away and I'd cry because you were the best brothers and I wasn't going to see you again in this lifetime.

But I didn't know that, and the self involved 16 year old that still creeps around inside of this considerably more considerate 28 year old is sorry for her ignorance, ignorance on so many levels. I wish I could say that I was making you proud, but I literally failed dummy math Tom, and I think I might be racist against Asians, so I will not learn the Japanese language for you Andy. But I'm gonna write a book, and it's gonna be good, and it'll get published, and I'll go on a book tour and be a New York Times Bestselling author, and then maybe you can be proud of me, having finally done something relevant in my life. And you can tell the people you're with that yep, that's my little sister.

I'm sorry I was a bratty little kid, and bratty tween, and a bratty teenage, and I'm sorry it took until I was 23 for me to realize that there are people in this world besides me. And I'm sorry you had to leave life so soon, and that there were so many things you missed out on in a physical presence, though I'm confident you were around spiritually. I hope you know I'm trying to be a good person, and even though I think I fail at it more than I succeed, I am trying. I hope you know I love you, and even though I think about you less often than I should, you're always there and the influence you, and your premature death have had on my life have changed me for the better. I know it was sketchy there for a while, it looked like I'd let it affect me the wrong way, but I managed to pull through, and now I'm trying to do things for the better.

I only meant well, of course I did. You say it was all for the best, well of course it was. This is just what we needed, He decided this... He decided this, so it must be the right thing. I still miss you, and I still hurt sometimes because of it. At least I can take comfort in knowing you'll be there to greet me when I'm done here.

I love you, brothers.

Love,
Sarah