Luxury of Believing We Couldn't Lose my Brother

I thought, after my brother's death, that it wasn't preventable, that there was nothing we could do and nothing we could say, and nothing anyone could have done to save him. That it was his time. None of us thought that he would commit suicide. None of us truly, in our hearts, believed that it was possible that we could be living without him.

And I thought, no family could possibly anticipate this. No family could anticipate that their son would be dead. No one could possibly live in fear of that and go on, given what I know about how awful it is to go on when something like that happens.

And then I read about Tamir Rice. About Sandra Bland. About Trayvon Martin. Mike Brown. Amber Monroe. About so many more. I read an article about a woman validating her right to be an "angry Black woman." And I read about African-American families instructing their  children how to behave with the police. How not to be pulled over, because if they are anything could happen and they could be anticipating a life without their children. I read about teaching these children, often so so much younger than my brother was, how to behave in this world that  treats them like they are not people, and I think, that 

these people do anticipate something awful happening. 

Even when it shouldn't, they live with one hand in the idea that something bad could happen. That they must take precautions. And even with those precautions, bad things keep happening, and they keep being blamed. The victims keep being blamed despite everything they have been doing to avoid this. And I think, my readers, my dear readers, how awful it must be to live in a situation where one anticipated that this might happen, aware that they may have to live without their brother, dear sister, their father, their best friends, their loved one, and they did what they could to prevent it, because they believed that it could happen, and they were not successful, and then the mainstream media, the White patriarchy blamed them. 

Whites maligned them, treated them like entertainment, like a news story, treated them like any sin they ever committed justified this death.

Whites watch them struggle to survive waking up every day into their worst nightmare and instead of doing something to stop one more family from having to live through this destruction, society makes it worse.

And I think, what a privilege that we never had to assume something bad might happen to him. What a privilege that in his death, one that might've been filled with rumors, or judgments, given some of the circumstances, everyone said lovely things about him and told us the wonderful stories and we were filled with the happy memories of his life, and every transgression ever attributed to him was set aside for that time. That should not be a privilege. I wish for us that we had believed we might really lose him. Maybe, now, I think that there is a reality somewhere where everything is different and a million tiny things added up means that he survived and thrived, but that if he didn't at least we would have hugged him a little more, called more often, treasured him more.

I wish for others, though, that the world would view the death as a tragedy. My brother's death may not have been preventable, but Trayvon Martin's and Mike Brown's, Sandra Bland's, Amber Monroe's, so many other's deaths were. Their families suffer untold pain on top of what I know. Every family that loses someone too early carries the pain, the emptiness, the loneliness that I know. And they suffer with the knowledge that there is a reality somewhere where everything is different and a million tiny things added up means that their loved one survived and thrived.

And this is why I call for improved gun policy, for better mental health care, for racial justice, an end to transphobia and homophobia. Because to me, it's not just a philosophical argument or a principle. It's not just a slight increase in my tax rate. It's life or death for many. It's joy or suffering for families not so different from mine.