It's all I can do

"It's not fair," he whispered.

We sat silently together. Side by side on a park bench by the ocean. Staring out to sea.

The sky was somber, cloudy gray, just before sunrise. The beach was empty. A morning jogger ran past on the sidewalk behind us.

"I know."

What else could I say? Any other words would just ring hollow, meaningless. And he was right, of course. It wasn't fair. But I could think of nothing to say that would comfort him, so I just sat quietly with him.

I gazed far out to sea, as if floating somewhere out there was the reason we were sharing this painful moment. But I knew I'd never find that reason.

Not out there on the sea, not in the air that hung between us, or in the words we didn’t speak.

The pain in his voice broke my heart. I didn't have to turn towards him to know that tears wetted his cheeks.

We'd been here before. Not on this bench. But here in this moment. In the weeks since she died, there had been several moments like this one. Sometimes I could see them coming; sometimes they blindsided me. And they always left me emotionally drained. But I never declined. How could I? Whenever he called, I responded.

I still remember the night he got the call - when I got his call. It woke me from sleep. He didn’t mince words. He told me she was dead. How could it be? They were so young, were so in love.

I still don’t know how I managed it. He lived 20 minutes from me, but somehow I was dressed and at his door in 15 minutes. To hold him and cry with him. To question the how and question the why.

In the weeks since that awful night, I watched him try to keep it together. Those of who love him whispered about how he was holding up, and how he was falling apart.

Sometimes there was anger, often fueled by alcohol and self-destruction. Cursing, lashing out, channeling his pain in the hope that he could rip this terrible moment from the fabric of his reality.

Who could blame him? I was angry, too, though not in the same way, or with the same intensity that burned inside him.

Other times there was grief. And wailing. His entire body would shake with sobbing. Those moments were difficult for me, not to endure, but because I felt so helpless to ease his pain. My heart broke each time because his heart was broken. All I could do was be there in the moment with him, giving him my presence because there was nothing else I could give.

And this moment, on a bench by the sea, was the same. His grief was quiet now. He had burned through his anger, cried away his pain. Now there was only sadness. Incomprehension. I sat with him, because it was all I could do.

He was my little brother. My amazing, funny, inspirational little brother. And now his heart was breaking, was already broken.

His life would never be the same. I knew he was altered permanently by this event. I knew that even decades from now, and in all the intervening years, his life would be affected by this one tragic event. And as we sat there quietly on that bench by the sea, I resolved once more to be there for him, time and time again, through the years and through the anger, the grief, and through the sadness. Because it’s all I can do.