Grieve

just writing some thoughts..

It is crazy how you can't predict anything that is going to happen. Don't you wish you could though?

Saturday October 31st. I had a great weekend. Talked to my brother that Saturday about how he was going to have a Halloween party that Sunday and how I couldn't make it because I had school the next day. (Damn, don't you just wish you could take certain things back.)We were planning on having my boyfriend take pics of us together for moms Christmas present..I remember him say super quick at the end of our conversation "HEY! I love you sis" ..and I quickly responded "Love you too bro talk to you soon. " 

November 1st, 2010. It was Monday, the day after Halloween. I had beauty school that day 8-6:30pm and after wards I was meeting up with my aunts boyfriend Dan to cut his hair. While putting my things away in Dan's truck he offered to go to have a steak over at Draft Pic's Sports Bar & Grill. So there we went...

Dinner: Chit chattin away about life, and I hear my phone beep as if I missed a call. I ignored the noise because I didn't want to be rude and grab my phone in the middle of dinner. Soon enough I hear it go off again ...and again..and again. Multiple missed phone calls from my Cousin Chris and my mom. My heart drops. Instantly I think and say out loud "I hope everyone is ok, gosh I hope my bro is ok, he had a Halloween party last night." Christopher was the last that called so I call him back. "CHRIS WHATS UP WHATS GOIN ON?" "Lish, you need to call your mom.. (he is holding something in and I can sense this isn't good) " Whats goin on man? Is everything ok? " Just call your mom, I can't say Lish, just call your mom." "Christopher what happened, whats this about?" " I can't say Lish just call your mom" "Come on Chris whats going on?" "Ahhhh it's about your bro, call your mom" "Ok, I love you" "Love you too." 


I already feel as if every part of me is being broken. I feel scared, I feel anxiety,I feel as if I just might faint, possibly lose my breathe, I feel shaky, I feel so scared....I'm freaking out...I am...So scared.


*Calling mom*She picks up.. "LISHAAAA!!!" (My mom is balling) "Whats happening mom whats going on wheres Tony??" "I DONT KNOW THEY ARE SAYING HE'S DEAD LISHA PLEASE COME HERE NOW!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO"

 My heart drops

... "MOM WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HEARD HE'S DEAD, MOM WHAT DO YOU MEAN?! WHAT IS GOING ON?!!" *I run out of the bar..I have no car. because I rode to school with a friend.No idea who to call..What to do..How to get to my mom as fast as I can.* "MOM IM COMING, IM COMING OK, I LOVE YOU, JUST BREATHE I WILL BE THERE AS FAST AS I CAN." "CALL YOUR AUNTY LISHA AND COME HERE. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO, I DON'T KNOW WHATS GOING ON!!" " IM COMING MOM, AHHH I DON'T KNOW WHATS GOING ON!? I'M ON MY WAY!"

 I feel so empty..

I am so unsure to what has happended, all I know is that my brother "might" be dead. How in the heck can  I hear that and not know what is going on. How can someone not know? Why hasn't anyone told me? When did this happen? What in the FUCK is going on? All I know is I need to be there for my mom, I need to make it to her.

Dan then runs out from the bar "Omg, Omg, Omg, lets go, come on, we are meeting your aunt and she is going to take you to your mom, lets go!"

While he is driving I cry..I can not stop thinking..I can not stop thinking as to what in the heck happened. Who can I call to find out?? What do I do? I immediately just call my brother.. I call Tony..His phone rings..But no one answers :( . Who do I call?

HIS ROOMATES. Of course I could call them, but why haven't they called us? 

*Calling one of his roommates* No one answers. *Call again* No one answers. * Call again* I leave a voice mail..He probably couldn't even understand what I was saying because I could barley breath. * Call again* He answers. (Now as much as I want to write what was being said and what  his side of the story was I will not.) But in a nutshell my brothers roommate tells me that my brother is gone. 

FUCK

I'm dying inside. It feels as if someone took my heart and ripped it out. Breathless. Like as if it were not real. All I could think of is maybe that it's not true, maybe hes in the hospital,maybe he is somewhere else. He isn't dead.

I then meet up with my Aunt Lisa and head down south to my moms work. Once we get to the large parking lot I see two detectives and my mom being surrounded by her coworkers just giving her mass amounts of love. Gosh, to see my moms first glance at me killed me inside. As if I had already knew what was going to happen. I get out of the car and just hold her. Tears roll down my face but I now know.. It is time to be strong. Not only be strong for myself...But for my mom. It was almost as if I transformed into wanting to curl in a ball to standing tall and playing a roll of some super women chick. As if I put my guard up and ignored my feelings to be there for her and whoever else I was going to have to be there for. 

The two detectives speak to me and let me know the situation..All I can do is hold back my tears and tell them thank you. I'm angry. Why didn't anyone tell us? Why did we have to find out multiple hours later? Gosh I am broken inside. My moms co-workers come back and give her more love. I just want to run away. So I then ask if they can show me where the bathroom is.  I didn't even need to use the bathroom., just needed somewhere to be by myself and think. I stood in the bathroom looking at the white walls for about ten minutes just crying...so blank...so annoyed..so angry..so mad..so sad...so hurt..Then I looked in the mirror. I'm a mess. All I could think to  myself was "Wow, this is what you look like when you find out your brother is gone." I hated what I looked like with that kind of sadness on my face. I recoup, and head back outside. I start walking towards my mom and everyone, but everyone is balling there eyes out and saying how sorry they were. So I keep walking..I walk until the path leads me around the corner and to a spot where I can just sit and cry by myself. It's freezing on the pavement but I don't even care. I just keep asking myself "why?" ...I ask my brother "why?" I cry out loud "why?" 


My aunt drove my mom home and I drove my moms car by myself...I had to be alone. The drive home was the same thing..Why?  Yelling and screaming to him..WHY? My mind started to think about all of the ways you can bring someone back to life. If I could just do this or that to bring him back. Wondering if I would have been there would it have happened. My mind races...Screaming the f word..crying..just so confused.


LIFE.




It is so precious..From then on I realized it is time to be strong for my mother and it is time to step up. From then on I had to take charge and do as much as I could for her.I miss him so much. That very night we began the planning..

What do we do, where do we start? Funeral homes? Burial, memorial, cremation? Who is coming? How do we spread the word? Why do I even want to spread the word :( ? How do we get a hold of his closest friends that are in different states? Flowers? Cards? Dvd's? Music? AHHH, so much to do.. Just want to cry and curl into a little ball and never wake up. But I need to just do it.

Everything went so fast..It was one of the craziest times in my life and I wish it never happened. I miss him so much. My family didn't let me be alone for about two weeks straight. It was so hard. All I wanted to do was drive as fast as I could and run away for a bit, ya know? Do you ever get that feeling? But once everyone was gone and I actually was by myself for the first time.. I felt a silence. As if my adrenaline had been going and going and going and then it just stopped. SILENCE.The words that I kept thinking to myself were "WOW, I made it." It was like one crazy movie. I kept playing everything through my head and it felt like a movie. Although movies aren't real..and this was. This was life. After all of this I promised my mom I would not drink a sip of alcohol for one month (she wanted me to never drink again of course) but one month for me was as good as it got. Not saying I am an alcoholic but I definitely drink. But I knew if I drank..It wasn't going to be good. When you are grieving I would think that is the last thing you should do. Already feeling like you don't want to be alive when your sober imagine that when you are drinking. My heart aches for my bro. My heart aches for my mother. My heart aches for his friends and family. My heart aches because I lost the closest thing to me. I am so happy that I got to know him for 21 years. It has always been my ma, him, and I. A tripod.

Now although I promised my mom that I wouldn't drink for a month I ended up not drinking for a very long time (and for me, that is great). I had no feeling or urge to. Not because of my bro, but because for the first time I had felt healthy. I knew I had to change somethings and that is when it all began. I became a peskitarian (only eating seafood for meats), no more going out to eat (if I did it was pho *love me some pho*, cooking better meals, more stretching, taking life as if it was your last day to live kind of thing, being a all around better person. I tried getting in touch with God. For a while there I was very optimistic about who this God is. I was raised to believe, that is what my family was about. Growing up going to church 24/7. Later on my life changed when my grandma (a missionary) left. I stopped going to church, but still had my mom to always show me the ways of the bible. As I grew older of course you get those questions. Now I am not saying I never believed in him, I am just saying I was unsure. So when people would ask I would say "I believe in my own God. I believe there is a high and a low and I have def. felt both. I believe in energy and we all know there is something out there." I still feel that way today but once my bro passed I started to feel a better connection with this "GOD". As if I could hear him in the back of my head telling me what to do next. He became my second voice almost. So when I would feel low I started to pray. One of those days came and let me tell you.. I was wanting to die, I was scared. My brother not being there anymore hurt me so much that I didn't even want to be here. But I didn't want to scare anyone because I know it is something I would never do but it was just the feelings becoming overwhelming. Then, in the back of my head there came that second voice..Telling me to grab the bible and open it up to a page, any page. So I did.. And it was the page of when God is coming back to take his people.. Not sure exactly but something along those lines. But it made me stop crying instantly. I realized I need to go on with life. To kind of stop slumming around and do something about it. Ok so my brother died. What am I going to do about it? Ok so I want to die. What am I going to do about it? Ok so Im scared. What am I going to do about it? Ok so... FUCK IT. I realized I am not going to sit around anymore and waste this precious time I have here in the world. Life is what you make it. Life is what you do with it. What you can accomplish. What makes you happy is what you need to be doing. No longer will I live just to live.. I will live on and live for my bro as well. Time to do things that I want to do. Not anyone else. Time to live for me. Not being selfish just trying things a different way this time. It was almost like I was being given a second chance. Even though I had not died, but it sure felt like it.

So a month later I went back to school 30 hours a week, worked full time, and decided I was going to find something to do next. So I searched and searched for things to do over the summer. I was thinking maybe park service. Maybe try to get a job in Montana at Glacier National Park. I really wanted to just run away, ya know? Then a boy named Jake ended up telling my boyfriend and I about a place called Skagway and how he drives buses over there in the summer time.  Hmm..

We discussed this bus driving stuff and thought we would just give it a shot and apply. Well then we had heard of the company having a little set up over at Western. My boyfriend ended up getting a call and setting up a interview. But what about me? I didn't get the call.. So I decided to just go there and introduce myself :) Why not, eh? When we got there Mike went to his interview and a man asked if I wanted to go ahead and do the same. Of course :) . I had felt like it went very well and then we were on our way. Headed to Mt. Baker for half day, get a little snowboarding action in :) Check my phone when the day is over and I had a few voicemails. One was a guy saying to go ahead and set up and interview (which I already had) and the other saying that they wanted me to join the team. HOLY SHIT. This was my chance to leave and be free. Only problem was...My boy didn't get the call :( . But what did I tell myself? It is time to live for me, right? Ugh...Life...So tough sometimes..Well we discussed things and I ended up goin for the gold and taking the job. You have to do what you have to do sometimes and this was just the beginning for me.

Time went on and I ended up seeing a counselor (which helped so much), graduating cosmetology school, took my state boards, got my cosmetology license, work work work, and began my CDL training... Holy shit. Who would have ever thought..Me? Drive a bus? You only live once right?

Gosh, my last day at school was nuts.. Felt so good because it was as if I would think about my bro constantly.. Sometimes I would have to leave class to go cry in the bathroom. Sometimes I would have to just talk it out with a buddy or something. I def. didn't want to be in public when I was so sad. Hard to put on a front. But I did it. Getting in my car and all I could do was cry. So happy, so FREAKING happy. FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, AND FUCKKK YOU! I DID IT. Saying that to whoever doubted me. Talking to my bro.. I did it Tone. Thanking God. I could't stop playing some nikki manaj song called "for life"  The drive back to Bellingham.. just crying.. All I could think is "damn" I did it. I miss you so much Tony.

Anyways.. Shit was weak. So many tough times but I made it. I am proud to say I ended up getting my cdl over months and I am now in Skagway, Alaska. Livin life :) ... For me.

It has taken me since November 1st. to write and finish this blog. Every time I started to type, I had to stop. I would get all choked up... It is still hard for me to talk about my bro. I know I need to. But is hard for me. This feels good to finish though, that is a start.

I know I need to get in touch with God a little more, something I lack. My time will come. I know I believe in something great so I think I will be ok. Besides that I have been living life for me, having great times, getting to see how I live life with out family being a half hour away haha, and SO SO much more.


I love you Anthony Alan Jefferson. You will always be loved and missed. Family is forever bro. <3