Honestly, when I look back at my Instagram post and blog post from April Fool's this year, it almost makes me sick to my stomach! To think that being dumped with snow was the real joke the universe was playing on me that day! In just over 24 hours, on the evening of April 2nd (my Evelyn's birthday of all days), I'd find out something much differently! The most cruel joke ever played on me was on April 1st, 2023, but it wasn't the snow ... it was the day that substance abuse took my older brother's life! It's hard for me to look back on that day knowing that I thought everything was okay, and that the worst thing happening in my life was that we had WAY too much snow. In reality my brother, Jeffrey Allen Olson, lay dead in a hotel room, from a heart attack, after inhaling one too many cans. It is three weeks, to the day, that I found out about his death and now my life will never be the same!
Admittedly, my day to day isn't any different than it used to be. Jeff and I weren't close in the last decade, because of his addiction. I had undergone one too many betrayals in the name of addiction, and once I started having children, I knew I had to set boundaries to keep them from seeing that lifestyle. That Jeff ... the drug addict. It was like Jekyll and Hyde. The clean Jeffrey was the nicest guy you'd ever meet, but the drug addict was someone different. Someone I didn't really care to know. He was manipulative, violent and belligerent. He would lie, straight through his teeth, about his addiction, and then manipulate my parents into believing I was the one making up stories! As his ex-wife recently told me, she was actually doing okay after his death, because the person he had become wasn't the man she married. She told me, "Jeff died a long, long time ago. I mourned for him years ago."
And it's true ... Jeff wasn't the same person anymore. I didn't see him very often in the last few years. He was in and out of jail and rehab so much that it was hard to know if he was clean enough to bring my girls around, but when I did see him, there was a glimpse of the brother I used to know still remaining. I had hoped for a long time he'd be able to find victory over his battle with addiction and we could have a close relationship again, but his demons were too strong, and Satan's lies were too credible. I had hoped that his girls would be enough motivation to turn his life around, but instead he's gone ... The "if onlys" have been a constant dialogue in my mind! "If only he had had the strength to get clean. If only I had reached out to him more. If only he had talked more about the things that were bothering him. If only ... If only ..."
I want to be clear, the drug addict wasn't who my brother REALLY was! The brother I knew was one of the best brothers in the world! One of the kindest, funniest, most big-hearted guys to ever cross your path. We were so close growing up! "Like two peas in a pod." This fact is why losing him hurts even more! It feels like there's a huge hole in-between me and my oldest brother, Jason, now. Probably because there actually is! We are 7 years apart, and just that fact alone meant that we were never really that close. Jeff was the glue that held us together. He was the buffer. He was just under 2 years older than me, so naturally we did everything together growing up! Wherever one was the other wasn't too far behind!
To say I'm doing okay is a lie, but saying anything else is too much for people to hear. People don't really want to know how you're doing and how you're feeling. They only ask, because it's the thing to do, but if you actually tell them how you're feeling, they don't know what to do with it! I'm not doing okay! There I said it! I'm struggling ... a lot! I have a lot of guilt around how I went about setting boundaries. I have a lot of guilt about not reaching out to him about a month ago, when I was thinking about it. It breaks my heart to know that he didn't feel comfortable calling me even after our mom told him to call me ... that I would answer if he called me! I hope he knew I still loved him ... that I still cared ... that I just didn't know how else to draw a line to protect myself from his betrayals, and to protect my children from seeing things I didn't want them to see!
I helped my parents, nieces, and Jeff's ex-wife plan the funeral. It was the hardest thing I've ever done in my life (aside from maybe labor). Certainly the most painful. I shared two eulogies at the funeral. One my niece wrote, as well as one written by me. Truthfully, it was only by the grace of God that I got through it ... through the whole day! I just keep thinking it's a nightmare, and I'll wake up and there he'll be! Instead, every time I close my eyes, I see him lying in that coffin! Lifeless and cold. Something my brother absolutely was not! I'm not really sure how to carry on and truthfully, I don't have the strength to remain strong for everyone else, but that's what I do! I'm the strong one! The one that doesn't need help, but I do! Any little thing can trigger me and there I am drinking my morning coffee, crying on the couch, because my brother's gone. My oldest daughter has gotten to the point that she just knows to ask if I'm crying because my brother died. "Yes, sweet girl. I'm crying because my brother died."
I miss him. Not the him that was addicted to drugs. I miss the brother that was my best friend. My confidant. I grieve knowing I will never get that him back again! I'm okay ... but I'm not, and I don't know what to do about it!
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