A Letter to You Austin

My therapist told me I need to write you a letter Austin. I need to let out everything I’ve been holding in. I need to get my questions off my chest. I need to try to breathe again. She told me to write to you, as if you were still alive.

So, here’s my letter to you Austin.

There are so many questions. So many questions I will never get an answer to. So many of the puzzle pieces that will never come together.

Regardless, I still need to do this. I still need to try to heal what is left of my soul.

I’m suffering, so incredibly much. I’m still suffering. I will suffer the rest of my life here on this earth without you.

I would do anything to be able to talk to you again, to see you on this earth.

I know what happened, I know you chose to leave this world. I know you are physically gone from this reality.

But my body still cannot process this. My mind still yearns for your presence here in this life.

I know you were hurting, more badly than I will ever be able to understand. I wish you wouldn’t have pretended. I know you did this to make us happy, to make the people around you believe you were alright. I wish now you hadn’t.

I know your internal struggles, your lack of confidence, and your anxiety. I’ve tried to put myself in your place. Since the day you left us I go back to that very day.

I try to imagine what your mind was thinking as you took your own life. It’s a very dark place, I don’t try to visit often. Going back to that place makes me physically ill, but I do it to try to understand, but I can never understand and never will.

Somehow my heart thinks that if I can go back in time and put myself in your place, that will make things different. I will be able to fully understand. I think I may be wrong.

There were subtle signs that you weren’t doing well, that you didn’t want to be on this earth anymore. These subtle signs that I simply didn’t see.

You played your part so well. You made me believe you would never leave us. I believed you with everything I had.

Once I heard the words spoken to me out loud, my mind screamed that it still wasn’t real. My mind jumped to every other conclusion, except to the one that you were actually gone.

I want to know how long you were suffering this bad. I know your life wasn’t always so bad. Life comes with a lot of highs and a lot of lows. Still the question that burns in my mind is why. Why Austin?

I only know the top of the surface. I want to know your deepest and darkest thoughts. Would that bring me peace? Would that finally complete the puzzle? I’m not sure.

It’s hard to imagine the Austin that wanted to take his own life. The Austin that was my brother was a remarkable soul.  One who was a brilliant, kind, generous soul who walked this earth with knowledge and depth most others didn’t have. I can’t picture that Austin taking his own life.

There was another part of you, that overcame the Austin I knew. This Austin was one who was inconsolable.  Nothing on this earth would have made you stay here. Nothing. And that’s very hard for my mind to process. I didn’t know this Austin, this wasn’t the Austin that was my brother.

I myself have lost the Aubrey I used to know. I don’t recognize myself or my life as being my own anymore. I have been thankful for a lot of recently good things in my life, but that still doesn’t change the fact that I’m not me anymore.

This life that I call my own isn’t a life I recognize. It’s the harshest of realities really. Living a life that isn’t your own anymore.

I’m not finished with my letter to you, Austin. I may never be, but I can only write so much.

Until next time.

So it goes.