An Open Letter (The Recovery Method)

During my grief therapy, my counselor had me do, The Grief Recovery Method’s Relationship Graph. There are three parts to this method. First you will make a timeline of your relationship with the person you are grieving. Second, you’ll make apologies, state forgiveness’s, and finally write down significant emotional statements.  Third, you will write a letter to your loved one. This blog entry is going to be very personal, it’s going to be hard to do and I’m going to be putting myself, my emotions and my life out there for everyone to view. While some of this is not completely accurate (as I’ve been told by my mother lol) it is how I felt as a child and how I viewed the situation at the time and age I was at. I’m doing this in hopes to not only help myself grieve, but also help someone else. Maybe, if someone sees the struggles that have gone on in my home, my life and in Aaron’s life with drugs, then maybe it will be a small wake up call for them. So, let’s begin with my timeline.

You’ll notice that the positive relationship items are listed on the top and the negatives on the bottom, I’ll go into more depth with them in my open letter. While doing this timeline, it was gut wrenching, I ugly cried through the entire thing. It is very emotional to see our life, or what stands out in our lives, wrote out on paper. (Click the photo to enlarge)

Below is the breakdown of apologies, and there are probably more, along with my statements of forgiveness and my emotional statements. You’ll probably judge me on some of them and that is fine, but I needed to be completely honest or this wouldn’t have worked. (Click the photo to enlarge)

Let’s begin with what is going to be hard for me to do…

Dear Aaron,

               

I want to first tell you, I miss you, I miss being your twin, I miss fighting with you, I miss hearing you tell me you love me. In the 35 years you were mine we shared many things. Some of them positive, unfortunately, a lot of them negative. You always remembered things in greater detail than me, and I was always jealous of that. You remembered the bottles we drank out of as kids and could recall places and activities with better clarity than me. But, there are some things that I do recall in our brief time together.

               

Being born your twin is now the proudest badge I wear, but it wasn’t always like that. I know mom said she had recorded us as babies talking, because we had our own language. I’d say something, in what was gibberish to mom, and you’d get up and go get a toy and bring it back to me. Then you’d say something, and we’d laugh and laugh and laugh. It was our own little world where no one else was invited and only we knew what each other wanted. You were a troublemaker from the start, learning to pinch the nipple on the bottle just right that you were able to squirt the contents out. As mom heard our giggles, and much to her surprise, found us in her bedroom with you squirting grape juice all over her walls. Every first that was had, was each other’s first. We learned to walk together, we learned to talk together, we started school together. As we grew older though, we grew apart. But I do remember what a miser you were with money. You would stash away your allowance and were afraid to spend a dime. I remember going shopping with mom and you’d ask for a quarter for the machine, she’d always tell you she’d give you one, but you’d have to pay her back when we got home. You’d decline and state you didn’t really need it anyways. Even though you were a cheapskate, at such a young age, I remember you surprising me with a get-well gift when I was sick. Although, the contents are fuzzy and I’m probably wrong. I remember a baton, coloring books, candy and a stuffed animal.  Although I know this bothered you into adulthood, I always loved this memory with you. But we use to have this toy room that mom made us clean, and you were such a good cleaner. I would pick up a toy, sit down and play with it, and mom would have to yell at me. All the while you are busting around the room putting stuff way. Mom thought she was getting smart and divided the room in half with the broom and mop and said you had to clean one side and me the other and while you busied yourself cleaning, I’d toss toys over the line when your back was to me.

               

As time went on, we changed, mom had to separate us in classes because we became so competitive on who was the better student and it wasn’t but a short few years later when we started to physically fight each other. It seems from 9 years of age and on, a lot of our relationship was negative. At 11, Jeff left us, on Labor Day, I’ll never forget that day. Him telling us he was leaving, you freaking out. You broke your glasses in half and flipped out thinking you were going to need to get a job because who was going to help mom out. Jeff decided it was better to be your friend and not our father, so at 15 he thought it would be cool, to just drive around with you and drink beer in the car. This was the beginning of the end.

               

Your drinking led you to be violent, mean and just hurtful. You’d come home drunk and throw punches at me, call me and mom every name under the sun. Your addiction gripped you fast and it gripped you hard. It led you to start experimenting with other drugs, now I know you were numbing your pain, but I hated you so much for your addiction. We had to come find you at times, get calls all hours of the night telling mom you were strung out and needed picked up. At the time, I was very resentful of how mom coddled you. I remember coming out in the middle of the night to get you at a A-Framed house and you were passed out on their couch. Mom kept say, “Come on Aaron, it’s time to go” She was softly speaking to you and I was ticked off. I just grabbed you by the neck and lifted you off the couch and was like, “Get the fuck in the car.” You just stood up and walked to the car. I always felt like I had to grow up so fast, because mom was so busy with your problems, I didn’t want her to have to worry about me. At 16 years old, I ended my relationship with our father. His alcoholism and abusive nature was something I didn’t want in my life anymore, and you just yearned for him to be in your life, so you continued on the emotional roller coaster and until your death you always tried to get Jeff and I to have a relationship. I listed that in the positives, not because I feel it was positive, but because I knew your heart was in the right place.

               

During our teenage years you spent a lot of that time going down the wrong path. You fought constantly with mom and I and it caused a lot of tension in the home. You stole from me and you would embarrass me in front of my friends. You came home one night, drunk, and my friends and I were swimming in the pool. You jumped in and lost a contact and you wanted us to find it, in the pool. I kept telling you we aren’t going to be able to find it and you just kept getting angrier and angrier. In the end you ended up chasing me through the house with a knife. I ended up throwing a computer chair at you to protect myself. You were arrested, and spent time in jail, and you received several DUI’s. None of this seemed to deter you from the choices you were making.

               

The connection of twins is undeniable. At 22 I was spending the night at a boyfriend’s house and I had this insane need to go home. I felt like someone was standing on my chest and couldn’t breathe. I left his house and when I got home, you were passed out clutching grandma’s heart medicine. Mom didn’t even know you were home. While we always tend to remember the times we were hurt, or the negative things that happened in our lives. There were some positives in our relationship.

               

You were such an awful gift giver. I mean, really the worst. But I always found it kind of endearing. It became a running joke wondering what you were going to buy us for the holidays and I remember our one birthday you asked me what I wanted, and I told you I wanted round cake pans in different sizes, so I could make tiered cakes, and some baking utensils. I even sent you photos of what I wanted, and you replied, “I’m not a fucking retard, Brandy.” But that birthday came and what I received was not round baking pans, but rectangle Pyrex. I remember laughing the whole way home over this gift. But I do use my Pyrex often. You did always stick up for me though. Even to Jeff, when someone mentioned to him about how exciting it must be for him that I was getting married, and you just laughed in his face and was like, “Yeah, he isn’t even invited.”

               

I wish I could just relive the last 6 months of our 35 years. When we found out you were doing heroin it completely devastated me. I felt so broken. Wondering why I turned a blind eye to your addiction for so long. How did I let it get this far? I felt this need to just help you with everything. Mom and I cleaned your house, it was so freaking filthy. I knew then how bad of a problem you had. We found so many used needles and it made me sick. Sick that you were living like this, sick that I hadn’t seen it, sick that I stayed away for so long. I was so happy when we repaired our relationship, when we started talking every day, you spending the night at the house, spending NYE together. Making jokes with one another.  Even during the sad times when we had to have Spencer put down, you, mom and myself were all together at the vet and even though it was heartbreaking saying good bye to him, we were able to see a little light in that day and we nervous laughed, probably inappropriately while in the vet office. You gave me those six months. I selfishly want more.

               

There is so much I need to apologize for, so much I need to forgive you for. But I barely made it through the list at the counselor’s office and I can’t tell you how hard it was to read the statement, I never realized how much I loved you, until I couldn’t tell you anymore. It’s true, you never realize what you have until it is gone. I took you for granted, I took our relationship for granted, I took our life together for granted. I’m so sorry for that. I’m sorry I didn’t realize how lonely you felt, how hopeless you felt. I wish I would have showed you that you were everything to me. I’m such a fool.

               

Now that I’m older, and at the age mom was when she was at the height of dealing with your addiction. I don’t know how she handled it all. Working 3 jobs, going to college, trying to feed two kids, keep them in school and deal with one who was an addict. She is the strongest person I know. That hits me hard you know?

                I have been battling loneliness myself lately. I was so sad that I had to face that speech alone with just Shane, that no one was showing up to support me. It broke my heart. Thankfully, I did have two people show up for me, and I don’t know if they know how appreciated I am to them for that! Someone told me something the other day and it kind of put it in perspective for me, they said, “Brandy, you’re so strong on the outside that I think people forget how broken you may be on the inside.” But I’m a survivor, it’s what I do, even alone and at that moment I realized I need to stop expecting me out of other people, because I’ll just be disappointed.

                Aaron, I love you, I love you so much that the grief of losing you seems so consuming. I forgive you Aaron, for everything, for your addiction, for the hurt, for the pain. I FORGIVE YOU.

                                                                                                                Your twin for eternity,

                                                                                                                Brandy