This timeline is all out of order. It will probably be like that for a while because I can start to write and then I have to stop because I have to stop. Then I won't pick it up again until the middle of the night, the next morning, the next time my mind is racing, or I have a random thought.
The last two weeks have been a hellish blur and I can't believe I am flying back to Washington in two days. Church this morning was a flashback to the funeral when I did the second reading - a reading from the second letter of Saint Paul to Timothy. I could see the casket at the front of the church and smell the flowers and I feel heavy and sleepy and sad, sad, sad.
I have had a panicky feeling in my chest all morning and I finally figured out why.
I drove to Sayreville today to drop off my sister and nephew and had about an hour of quiet on the ride back to Long Valley by myself. Tears were just rolling down my cheeks and my throat was tight. I realized that I have been sleeping in my brother's room, smelling his smells, folding his laundry, walking on his carpet, and when I leave Tuesday that will mean he's really gone. Not just on a long ride, but gone. My brain can't comprehend that he's not coming back for his stuff, and someday how his things smell like him will fade. And I won't hear his boots on the tile in the kitchen anymore. I can hardly breathe. I am packing up some mementos to ship home for me and my kids. I feel like a thief, even though I know he won't need these things. He wasn't much for material things in life anyway, which is probably adding to my criminal feeling because anything he kept had a lot of meaning to him. I found a birthday card I sent him when he turned 50 in 2010. He kept that from me.
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