I’ve been pretty much a Debbie Downer these last couple of weeks or months. Losing my brother, Bruce, has really thrown me for a loop. I often think of things I want to share with him or talk about and then know that there is no one left for me to share family memories. I did some reading on how grief affects your brain and one of the things I found, which I found very true for me, is that grief can be like PTSD.

https://www.americanbrainfoundation.org/how-tragedy-affects-the-brain/

Traumatic loss is perceived as a threat to survival and defaults to protective survival and defense mechanisms,” says Dr. Shulman. This response engages the fight or flight mechanism, which increases blood pressure and heart rate and releases specific hormones. Grief and loss affect the brain and body in many different ways. They can cause changes in memory, behavior, sleep, and body function, affecting the immune system as well as the heart. It can also lead to cognitive effects, such as brain fog. The brain’s goal? Survival.

That at least explains some of what I’ve been feeling lately. My brain is hyperalert and wary of so many things. I realized what was happening when I was at my great-niece’s softball game. The batter hit a line drive directly at the pitcher, but luckily, she was able to deflect the ball and wasn’t hurt. My immediate response was that I was fighting tears.

That wasn’t the first time either. We were camping last year with our son (just a month after Bruce died) and we were sitting around the campfire. My son’s dog kept getting really close to the fire. I repeatedly warned my son that she was going to burn her tail, but he just poo-poo me. Of course, what happened? She singed her tail in the fire. It was so traumatic for me, I began to sob and I feel so stupid.

When I was going to the Grief Share group, I was surrounded mostly by women who had lost their spouses, but I was the one blubbering. I felt it was wrong for me to react this way. These poor women had lost their mate, their helpmeet, their lover, the father of their children, and me, he was just my brother. I didn’t live with him. Heck, sometimes I didn’t see him for several months and would sometimes go a month or at least several weeks, without even texting him. (We didn’t talk on the phone, text was always good.)

Now that I know why this is happening to me, it helps but I still feel as though I have to hide my tears because what other adult sits around crying over mundane things?

In the past, every Easter, it was a private joke between my brother, Steve, and me about the hymn “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.” This hymn was played at our Grandfather’s funeral, our Dad’s funeral and our brother Darrell’s funeral. I guess it is a typical hymn sung at Lutheran funerals. Anyway, this song has always evoked strong emotions in me, and generally, before the song is over, I’ve begun to cry. So our private joke at Easter was “How many verses did you get through before you started to cry?”

I tend to avoid many things that I know will elicit a strong emotional response from me but for some reason, I never thought about that song being sung this Easter morning. As soon as the organ started, I knew I was in trouble. Now the song reminds me that I no longer have Steve to share that memory with and that, of course, it reminds me that I don’t have Bruce either. I didn’t sing at all and fought tears through the seven verses of the song.

Being the second oldest of family, I never thought I’d outlive my brothers. So, yes, I’m still grieving, but it’s getting better, little by little.