It’s been five months since I’ve kissed your face. Five months since that last time I would ever hold you close to my heart. I got married without you in October. I walked down that aisle and until I got to my beautiful Ju the only face I could see was yours.  We faced the unimaginable loss of Dave without you. The night we got that phone call I wanted so bad to reach for you. To cry to you. To feel safe in your arms. You were my safest place for as long as my memory will let me see.

I woke up this morning knowing what today was- Bell Let’s Talk Day. This day has always been during your birthday week. It has always felt like some sort of cosmic joke to me. Each year as this week approached I would be reminded that my brother may not always be here. That the stigma, the disease, the thoughts going through your head might eventually catch up to you and leave me here without your warm embrace or your goofy laugh or your protection. It alway’s made me celebrate your birthday with my whole heart, hoping with every ounce of my being that this wouldn’t be your last one.

Every day since you’ve died has been a day for talking about mental health for me. Every minute I am awake there is a part of my brain engaged in that conversation. I started my Masters in Counselling Psychology a few weeks ago and now my professional role is to continue to have these conversations. It is every moment I’m awake. It begins the second I wake up and realize all that we have lost. It continues when I take a shower and listen to your favourite music and cry (sometimes a tear, sometimes hysterically). I sit down to do my schoolwork and the implications and disorders and statistics lay themselves before me while I try to absorb all I can. Some days I can’t do anything at all. Some days I can only cry. Sometimes I can only think of your face and smile. I look out the window and see Dave’s place and I am reminded again. The trauma. The sickness. The hurt. The pain. The grief. Saying the words “my brother died by suicide” doesn’t make me feel ashamed. That is my path to walk, his fate, his journey, his souls contract. What scares me the most is that more people will have to say these words than I can fathom. What scares me the most is that on all the days that aren’t January 25th there is an overwhelming stigma attached to mental health, a silence amongst the masses.

It has become abundantly clear to me that my job here is to talk about these things until someone listens. Until something has changed. Until Mental Health in Newfoundland and Labrador involves prevention, holistic strategies, and education. Until our facilities are comfortable and safe. Until every person in this province who needs help has access to it.

Today, I will sit and think of you, my beautiful, sweet and kind brother. I will think of your smile and your laugh and the way you teased me. I will think about all those times we got in trouble. All the times you got me in trouble. All of the times I told mom on you. The time I held your X-Box out your bedroom window by the cord so you’d give me back my CD. Pretending the floor was lava. The conversations where I begged you to stay here with me. The conversations where you begged me to be okay too. The nights when we were kids and I could hear Sharon, Louis and Bram coming from your bedroom all night. The nights where you yelled at me for playing Rent one more time. Jumping on our trampoline. The time I broke my foot because I was trying to beat you at a game of “who can knock over the most blocks with their body”. When, 5 days before you died, you went to Vancouver just so I wouldn’t have to in order to get my whole life and bring it back to me. Every moment I spent with you. Every minute we laughed or cried or yelled or hugged.

Tomorrow I will go back to learning the theories I need to know. I’ll write my papers and formulate my discussions with my class. I will go back to educating myself on the needs of our province. I will go back to creating a foundation in your name. I will take my shower and sing you our songs loud enough to be heard in heaven and then I will continue to pick myself up and vow to kick ass. For you. For me.

With your heart, and my whole soul

Kelsey