and so....

it's been a year and five months... A YEAR. A whole year has passed. It's unbelievable really. I guess the way I have made it a year and a half is that at some point last summer (around the one year mark) I had to turn certain things off so to speak. I couldn't think about the reality of what had happened. I had to stop thinking about what it all meant. I could tell someone my brother had died but then I had to stop there. I couldn't let my head go to the place where he died and wouldn't be at my little sister's wedding or that it meant I would never hear his laugh, or babysit his kids. I couldn't think about the scene at the funeral when they were loading up the hearse and the Dropkick Murphy's Amazing Grace went from the bagpipe refrain to the thrasher metal.
I couldn't think about the three sentences that changed my whole world. My sister's voice at 4am "Sarah.... Shane had an accident."
"is he okay?" I gasp
"No hes deeead" she moaned through tears.
I couldn't think about my dad's voice "I've got to go, the coroner is here. Sarah you've gotta come home." I had to push certain things out of my head.....
the relief I felt when I walked into the funeral home and looked through the windows into one of the reception rooms and saw my brother laying there, the white sheet exposing him only from the neck up. "oh, well there's Shane," I thought with surprised relief. "He's right there." forgetting for a second he wasn't just sleeping.
There are certain things I can not allow myself to think about or it becomes too much. There are certain things I ignore in order to get out of bed everyday. It is so strange to me that even after all this time, the pain is still so raw and savage. It can be crippling, even now. I can discuss the logical side of things....."my brother died in a car accident two houses away from home." I can not however, think about what this logical synopsis means to me emotionally. I can not think about my brother just being gone, it is too much to bear.