With that said, here it is.
1:40AM
March 19, 2010.
I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you.
I’m sorry that I have made you a villain inside my own head and out loud to the few who would listen. You were my brother and I’m sorry I failed to understand.
You only graced my life, physically, for four years, but hardly anyone has affected it so deeply. When I first heard your name from Dad I was eight years old and I couldn’t grasp that you were real - that I had a flesh and blood brother, 10 years my senior, in some distant town completely unaware of my existence. My family was just us - me, Dad and Cody, and Momma too, but she had already left us. I understood Dad’s words, your name, Zachariah, but not that you were a real person.
I will always remember when you first became concrete in my mind. It was the eighth grade, in the midst of my Hanson obsession. I came home from school that day and true to my nosey self, checked our voicemail.
“Hi! This is Zack calling...” Immediately, my mind went to the youngest of the Hanson brothers, the then love of my life and my heart nearly leapt from my chest. Then you said, “Zack Prince. I’m the son of Steve Prince. I got your number from our grandparents in Illinois. I have been searching for you for a long time..”
Then you were real.
When you first came to meet us, I was resentful of your immediate openness to call us family. Admittedly, I was not used to such affection. I was your “Sissy” from the get go and that frightened me. I felt that you were failing to look before you leapt. Where were you when Dad was dying? I was I your Sissy then?
I failed to gather that you had lived in the same ignorance I had when I first heard your name. You were unaware of our existence. You didn’t even know Dad was your father until it was too late. You couldn’t have been there because we weren’t real to you then.
For the next four years I got to know you with your kind and contagious laugh, all your tattoos and your sense of humor that so mirrored my own. I saw Dad in you. Even though you were never given the opportunity to meet him you, were so much like him. Not only physically, with the same telling eyes, but in personality too. Funny, smart and a charming people person. Both you and Dad could draw the attention of strangers who would then open up to you as if you were an old friend. You said you never got to know him, but he was inside of you the whole time.
When you left us it was earth shattering. None of us expected it, although maybe we should have.
I knew you were changed when I saw you that April. I knew Stewart had broken your heart, but I could also see that something in your very core had altered. Sure, you cracked the same lame jokes and tried to smile your contagious smile, but the light behind your eyes had dulled. You were quieter and you were distracted.
I’m sorry for my reaction to your death. I’m sorry I got angry - that I blamed you. Mostly I’m sorry I didn’t understand.
I cannot lie, I still hurt that you chose to end it while Cody was visiting you. He had already known so much pain in his short little life. Everyone who was ever suppose to care for him had abandoned him through death, and you were just the next. Remembering him alone there with you after you had slipped into unconsciousness, scared and isolated, still infuriates me to the point of trembling.
I know now though, the darkness that had consumed you. I did not understand then why, how, you could hurt yourself, especially while Cody was in your charge. I thought it meant you did not love us as you said you did. I thought you were a liar.
I’m sorry, Zack. I know know that you were a prisoner to the pain in your heart and the voices in your head. Whether it truly was suicide, or the accident I like to believe it was, it wasn’t really my brother who made the decision. Not really my brother who failed to take the time to think of us that loved him. It was the choking darkness.
I forgive you for your mistakes. I continue to love you and imagine our lives had the darkness not won out. I only hope that wherever you are, you forgive mine too.
The End.
