Last year, around this time, my brother breathed his last. He was 32. He left without warning. Or maybe he left with warning. Hints and traces of cries for help. Days and moments when he would mumble he was not ok. And I would scramble for help, powerless. Often, the cry for help would be gone in a flash. Minutes after he reaches out, I’d lose him. From something I said or didn’t say. And so my replies were calculated. Bits and pieces of lifelines too. “Do you need someone there?” And then he’s out. The ties are cut. Until the next time he pays me heed.

I wish I had gone home sooner. Not to collect him from the morgue. But a month before, or even that Friday. On a Thursday, he had messaged me his body was giving up. “Everything hurts” he whispered. “Where?” I asked. He cried: “Everywhere.” And then I cautiously asked: “Do you want me to send the doctor?” And he replied: “I am not ready.”

And now I wonder if he meant he was not ready to die. Not prepared to see the affliction that was his body. The heaviness that took his heart. The doctor was not needed. I should have sent for me. If only I knew it was the end of the line. Because there were days, and months, and years when I could have tended to the aches he had dampened with moonshine. When I could have just broken down the door, the walls that kept him from us. When I, not alcohol, could have kept him company. My brother kept to his own. Preferred to spend days, weeks, months, in his own hermitage. Sometimes, he would visit. I had him with me. At home. But those days were numbered. Like his life was numbered, a blink of an eye. And all I have left are the notes he left in my guest room. His drawings of birds, his musings, his clothes, books, the toys he left in boxes.

What happens when it is too late? Are we ever too late? Because I don’t know a God who hands out time and then retrieves it before second chances. Was 32 years short, his only borrowed time?

I thought I knew grief. My father kicked the bucket when I was 5. A few years ago, I said goodbye to two stepdads and a beloved aunt. But I didn’t know the heart-wrenching pain that comes with a sibling you thought would outlive you, going too soon. He was my little brother, the boy I read bedtime stories to, the 7-year-old I once painted blue so he could be a Smurf for Halloween, and then after life happened, watched over anew, read stories to (so he could wrestle with demons) and then attempted to paint a rose-colored life for. Where are you now? Do we truly make it to someplace beautiful, Smurf heaven, a faraway land, where everything’s bright?

Joan Didion once wrote: Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be.”

And when it does come, it unweaves the very fabric of your being. I’ve come undone. Carved-out. Unearthing memories is painful. Going through his things is torturous. Each time, a stab in the heart. I haven’t reread any of his messages. Could not watch a single video. Driving alone in my thoughts is hard. Family gatherings are hard. Fridays are hard.

Today, grief visits and it’s the anguish of regret. Because there were days, now in stark, clear-cut tormenting contrast, when he had silently screamed: I am not ok. And silly me, believing that brothers live forever, whispered back: “It’s ok. Everything is going to be ok.”

Until it was not. And the world goes dark. Stripped off rose-colours. Or happy ever after. And all you have are unfinished drawings, unwashed clothes, and unfulfilled dreams. A life unlived. And you find yourself drowning your sorrows, in the same moonshine balm that took his life. That juice of oblivion. And you see his torment. The misery that does not love company. The enforced loneliness that comes from people leaving, gone too soon. And you can now watch his life without wanting him to snap out of it, tame his demons, stop drowning, be ok.

A week after he died, I saw him in a dream. He was fully alive. A twinkle in his eye. He beamed at me and said he has finally found a way back to himself. He said he was lost, felt imprisoned in a metal cage. But he has broken free. He said: “I am ok.”

I know they say regrets are wasted. I need be thankful of the 32 years he had with us. Those good, beautiful, and ugly 32 years, that short span of life. I hope when grief has done what it wants with me, that gratitude meets me there. I hope I find myself there one day.

For now, grief visits. Insists on staying.

But love, once arrived, stays forever.

I don’t know where you are now. I only know that I love you. That stays. A happy 1st wherever you are. Smurfland, rose-colored world, bright lights, and all. Salut!