Lee’s story
Lee and Jamie
Lee speaks about his brother’s unexpected death, and how he is learning to cope with his grief.
11th August 2021
I was 26. It was just another Wednesday working as a Pharmacist in that long pandemic summer. A normal lunch break, normal small-talk with colleagues: the European Super Cup was being hosted in our city that night, the Tokyo “2020” Olympics had just ended, the premier league was about to restart…
But then my phone rang and answering it would shatter my world.
It was my Granda calling. He would sometimes call when I was at work to ask questions about his heart medication or pain killers for a new minor injury or something. I could immediately tell this was not one of those calls. I could hear that he was crying straight away and my mind began racing about what I was about to be told. But I could never have been prepared for the words that came next. My 15-year-old brother, Jamie, had died suddenly and unexpectedly at home.
I can still remember that sentence as if I was hearing it right now, but the rest of the phone call is a bit of a blur. What do you say? What do you do? That evening and the days and weeks that followed were a relentless cycle of heartache, panic attacks and a deep fear of this new reality.
We would eventually find out that Jamie died from internal bleeding due to a ruptured spleen, that had been enlarged and inflamed by glandular fever.
It will never not be devastating that my brother died that day. Selfishly, I was supposed to have him my entire life. But more importantly, he was supposed to have his entire life. I think that’s the thing about grief that has surprised me the most. Of course, I miss Jamie every day and I grieve the lost time I personally would have had with him. But so much more of my pain comes from the heartbreaking injustice that he doesn’t get the long joyful life he deserved. He was such a sweet, sensitive and funny little boy that I watched grow in to a caring intelligent thoughtful teenager. I saw so much of myself in him and I know he saw people and the world much like I do. My love for him was overwhelmingly strong from the day he was born, when I was 11, only grew stronger throughout our time together, and will stay with me until I’m hopefully an elderly man. I just wish I could tell him that.
“ Grief has at times come close to destroying me. It feels all-consuming, never-ending and unconquerable. But i am resilient.”
I try hard to let myself be proud of the lows I have risen from. And when inevitably the painful truth and permanence of Jamie’s absence really sinks in from time to time, I try my best to let the emotion be what it wants to be.
I often struggled with the feeling of helplessness at not being able to prevent this tragedy, and survivor’s guilt as me and my other 2 siblings live on without him. I’m sure a lot of you reading this have felt that too. But there’s nothing anyone could have done and no one would choose for any of this to happen. All we can do now is live our lives to the absolute fullest and cherish all the love and joy that comes our way. We live on in their honour. Jamie is on my mind and in my heart every single day, and I hope that never changes.
