Eight months without you

Dear Alexander,

it has been eight months since you chose to leave us. I am still having a very hard time trying to understand your decision. I miss you every day, think of you every day and wish I could do something to have you back. I play the scenes of us talking about your problem over and over, trying to see where I went wrong, where I should have done something different to prevent your decision. And then I try to understand that after all it was still your decision. But oh, it is so difficult. I try to accept that you saw no future for yourself but it is so hard to believe. Sometimes I even don’t see how I can get over this pain myself. Do you see how much we are struggling? Do you have bad days in heaven because you worry about us who are struggling with your decision?
Last month was the first holiday season without you. Especially the time right before was difficult, all of us were so caught up in our own feelings and fears. It turned out that we can still work pretty well together and we had a relatively peaceful Christmas, if one can say that. But we missed you. I miss your smile, your laugh, you teasing me, the way you would hug me and smile at me. Oh Alexander, I cannot imagine never seeing all this again. Why, oh why? How could you not see a light at the end of the tunnel? You could have made it, if anyone, then you. It is so hard, so impossible for me to understand that you had no way of seeing beyond your pain anymore. You did not seem to be so much under pain. It is so hard to believe that you just did an amazing job of covering up how bad you really felt inside. I know that you tried to tell us but we did not listen well enough. I am sorry that I was unable to read the signs, that I was not educated enough to help you. I wish I could turn back time.
My dear brother, it is so strange without you, so much has changed these past eight months. Can you see how much father has changed? I believe that he turned into a person you would have loved to have as a father. Do you see how much mother suffers? Do you feel guilty for that? Do you see how she does not have time for our little sisters, time that she would have had otherwise? Do you see how they are both struggling with school and their immense grief for you? Do you try to help them? I feel like I need to help them all and it is overwhelming. I am so tired of doing it all in addition to my work which is enough anyway. And yet I can’t stop because I am so scared, so incredibly scared that I miss the signs of someone else suffering, someone else needing my help and I am not there in the right moment. But I am so tired, so exhausted. I miss you so much. I always knew you were still there to help our sisters with whatever problems they had when I did not find the time or was busy or whatever. Now there are still the two other brothers but it is not the same. I wish you would answer me some time and give some answers to my many questions. But even more than that I want to see you happy again, laughing, joking and with all that love in your eyes. There are no words to describe how much I miss you.
I love you, little big brother.
Forever, Carola