Hey everyone, I’ve been sitting on this for a while, and I need to let it out somewhere. I figured this is as good a place as any. Some of you I’ve known for years, and maybe you’ve even sensed something has been off about me, something I’ve been carrying around without knowing why.
Last weekend, I was cleaning through my old dresser — yes, the same one that has the stubborn drawer that never opens right — when I found a tiny, yellowed note. It’s funny, isn’t it? How the smallest things can unravel the biggest parts of your life?
The note was tucked away in the far corner behind all those forgotten socks. It was neatly folded, and as I opened it, a piece of my childhood came rushing back. It was a simple drawing; well, not quite simple. It was a crayon masterpiece by a six-year-old version of me: a crude crayon rendition of a house, a sun with that big lopsided smile, and a family of stick figures. All the things kids draw, right? But this one was different. Next to the smiling figures, there was another figure, faint and almost blending into the background.
I stared at it, and that’s when it hit me like a wave. My brother. I hadn’t thought about him much over the years, because he wasn’t there to think about. You see, he died very young, and I guess, as a child, I locked those memories away with him.
I sat on the floor for what felt like hours, just looking at this drawing, remembering the brother I had for only a few years. Memories are funny like that — they hide until something beckons them back. Suddenly, I felt like I was in the room with my younger self, piecing together the fragments of whispers and laughter I must have shared with him.
I remember his laughter, high-pitched and infectious. He used to chase me around the garden with a toy plane. We’d pretend the plane was flying to magical lands, places we made up on the spot. It was our secret world. I don’t know how I had pushed this world so far away. Maybe it was too painful to hold onto, or maybe I just wasn’t ready to remember.
My parents rarely talked about him. It was like an unspoken agreement in our family, a silent understanding to avoid reopening wounds that never truly healed. But this drawing — I think it was something I made for him. Maybe I knew even then how much I’d miss him, how deeply his absence would echo through my life.
For days after, I carried the drawing with me everywhere. I’d slip it into my notebook or my jacket pocket, needing to hold onto this piece of him, to not let it slip away again.
I finally showed it to my mom yesterday. She cried when she saw it. I think they were tears of both joy and sadness, like a bittersweet reunion with the past. We talked about him for the first time in years, about how he would have been so much older now, and how he loved to draw alongside me.
This little note — this faded piece of paper — has opened up something in me. I feel lighter, in a way. It’s like I’ve finally found a missing part of my heart. I’ve realized the importance of holding onto memories, even the painful ones, because they shape who we are and who we become.
I don’t know what I’ll do yet with this renewed connection to him. Maybe I’ll frame the drawing, or maybe just keep it close a little while longer, let it guide me. But I know this: I won’t let it slip away again, and I won’t forget him.
Thanks for listening, and for being here. I needed this space to share, to let some light into a shadowed corner of my soul.
I’m learning to knit the threads of my past into something whole, something I can finally understand and hold onto.