Lonely

We are home. Again. The last 3 weeks we have been gone. It felt like a lifetime. And in a way it was. The life I lived before is different than the life I will live now. Nobody else will notice the difference. I will wake up in the morning, get my boys off to school. I will run errands and play with my little ones. I will go to the gym and talk to my friends and do all the things that make up my life. But I will never be exactly the same person I was before. I will notice the difference. I will have a hard time falling asleep at night. When the house is quiet and I have my thoughts I will stay up and wish and wonder. I will think of the last time I talked to my brother, just days before he died. I will wish that I had told him how much I loved him in a way that would have made a difference. I will think of his little girl who has his blue eyes. I will watch a wedding on TV and cry. Cry that he won't be there for her wedding. And then I will just keep crying because it pushes that tightness out of my chest for a while. Once my tears are dry the loneliness will set in. I will think of our childhood, that perfect little boy I loved so. I will think of all the ways our lives were intertwined, the way only siblings can be. And that is where it will stop.Too abruptly. Where it always stops. The memories swirl around but the loneliness just stops and stays. Not in a horrible way. Just in a lonely way. I wish that I didn't have to, but it is good to miss him. It is good that we loved each other, that I feel that hole in my life. I will get used to it. I will learn how to live with the loneliness. But I will not be the same again. We never are after life happens this way. And maybe after the hurt has faded, the person I am will be better than the one I was before. My brother would like that.