My cousin died this week.
That sounds so simple. As if I only had one cousin. As if it's so clear and neat. I have more first cousins than I deserve, and I know and love them all.
Oh, Cousin. It's easy to feel cheated when I think of the boy you were--the young man you were. And then something in your brain changed...changed you. Made it seem so hard to communicate with you. I never asked you how it was to deal with your illness. I thought I was being respectful, but now I'm just left with questions and regret.
Have you ever googled schizophrenia? There are videos put together to simulate the experience.
They're scary. I can't imagine living in a world where voices followed me everywhere. When I saw those videos, short horror films to me, I felt a little differently. I don't know a lot about my cousin's experience, but I do know that the "medicine" proscribed to him was no simple solution. There are as many ways to treat mental illness as there are to deal with an oil spill. None of them simple.
I wish I knew more. I never wanted to ask about any of this because I didn't want to pry. I didn't want to call any attention to how different he was--from us and from himself.
I wish I had asked.
I wish I hadn't tried so hard to pretend that he wasn't sick.
I wish I'd had the strength to just love him fully and closely and openly and without fear.
Should he have lived much longer? Maybe. Maybe it's a selfish thought: What? He should have lived longer so I don't feel guilty about not getting in touch enough? Maybe he is happy now. Maybe he has some relief.
I miss you, Cousin. I've been missing you for years. I miss the boy who I thought was supposed to grow into a happy, healthy man, start a creative career, get married to a sweet, funny, affectionate, beauty and have a couple of towheaded kids.
How can you have slipped away like that? Weren't we holding you tightly enough? Was there anything we could've done that we didn't do?
