Sequel: Time to Change ›
A City of Fools
.011
”Please, don't let this be happening. Oh, God, please, let this be a dream. There's no way this is happening.”
Alexander Gaskarth was fourteen, going on fifteen, when he lost his brother, Daniel. It was October and the Baltimore air was cool, the leaves on the trees were just beginning to turn from a bright green to orange, yellow, and red. Colors that would remind him of summer, the last summer he would ever have with his brother. Even now, three years later, summer isn't the same. The two brothers will never be able to go down to the creek and talk about girls; they'll never be able to sneak into rated-R movies and throw popcorn at the couples making out; they'll never be able to do anything.
For Alex, the anger stage lasted the longest.
Stage One: Denial.
In the beginning, denial was a stage that was skipped automatically. It's one thing to hear about your brother's death from, say, your parents or the cops. It's easy to deny it when it's not right in front of you. However, for Alex, denial was never an option. After all, he's the one who found Daniel. Poor Daniel, cold and lifeless hanging from a fishing rope that he had found in their parents garage. (Alex would never forgive his father for that.) You can't deny death when your brother's skin is blue and cold and you're the one that has to pull him from the rafters and hold him until the cops show up.
I guess Alex and I are more alike than I would have ever been comfortable previously admitting.
Whispering soft words to a lifeless body, begging them to come back, isn't something that only happens in movies. It's your first reaction, your primal instinct. Your primal instinct is to shake the body, hoping to bring some sort of life back, even trying CPR...even when you don't know exactly what you're doing. Alex found out later that he crushed his brother's ribs, one puncturing a lung that wasn't even working, in his attempt to bring him back to life.
He never forgave himself for that.
Stage Two: Anger.
The stage that plagued me the longest was the anger stage, but this paper isn't about me. Finding out how people cope with loss gives great insight to their personality. Anger is an easy emotion, for some people it just comes naturally. It's natural to feel angry when someone leaves you, whether you blame the person themselves, whether you blame your family, society, some higher being, it's easy.
Alex Gaskarth has always had anger issues. I knew it from the first time he ran into me in the hallway and didn't apologize; instead, he looked at me like I was the scum of the earth and should walk clear on the other side of the hall and stay out of his precious way. And it took me a while to see him in any other light than the arrogant front he always had on. Anger is Alex Gaskarth's go-to emotion, I learned that quickly, and it's the first thing you notice about him.
Anger is instant. Alex could feel it surging through his body form the minute he laid eyes on his brother. From the chair he threw out of the way to pull his brother free to the glasses in the kitchen thrown against the wall when he unloaded the dishwasher a week later. It was evident from the constant arguing with his parents to the fights he started at school with anyone who gave him a wrong look. He was a raging time-bomb and no one knew when he was going to explode.
Thankfully, he didn't.
Stage Three: Bargaining.
Alex Gaskarth has never been a religious man. Especially after his brother died, he found that he had lost any sort of faith in any higher being. Death works in two ways: it either brings people closer to God or pushes them away from Him. For Alex, it pushed him away; for me, it brought me closer to God.
It's easy to blame everyone else. Blaming Daniel's death on someone else was easy but when Alex was over the anger, he started to beg. He would beg his mind and God to send him his brother back, making foolish promises of attending church regularly or giving to charities or helping at food banks. All in vain, of course, Alex would have never held any of those promises. But his anger was only solidified when his brother didn't come back and he woke up the next morning to another day without Daniel.
Stage Four: Depression.
By the time Alex realized nothing would bring back his brother, he hit rock bottom. Or, well, okay, he didn't really overdose or end up in the hospital or try to kill himself—it wasn't that kind of rock bottom. But with anyone who is completely shaken and devastated to the core by the loss of someone they love, they do things they shouldn't, things they regret, things they wish they could take back.
Alex sure did.
In politically correct terms, he turned into a womanizer. People who deal with death act differently; some people find solace in alcohol, anti-depressants, sex, their friends, music, the list can go on. Alex fell into the “sex” category. He can be open about it now, and he is, he didn't mind telling me all about it when he finally decided to open up. He didn't speak about it with pride or regret, instead he spoke about it with indifference, as if it was something that happened and he didn't really have an opinion on it.
Maybe that was just his way of coping.
Stage Five: Acceptance.
For Alex, it took him almost three years to reach this stage. Maybe that's fortunate considering some people never reach it; sometimes I doubt I ever will. He told me he came to terms with it after he found out my brother died. I don't know what to think about that. Sometimes people can move on from their own problems when they realize someone else is going through something traumatic. Maybe he found solace in the fact that he wasn't the only one suffering and he was no longer alone in his pain.
Who knows?
He said that acceptance is a feeling you wake up with. It's something heavy that sits in your stomach, something akin to nausea, but fills you with happiness instead of uneasiness. It's something you don't expect but something you've been waiting for. It's when you wake up and know that things will be okay. It's no longer something you fantasize about; it's not something you tell yourself, 'yeah, I'll feel that one day.' It's something attainable and it's when you wake up and just...smile. You're smiling at their memory instead of crying, you think about the good memories and not how they looked lying in the casket. You think about their laughter and their smile, not the sadness you felt as their body was lowered into the ground.
It's that feeling that, yes, someone you love is gone, and while they may not physically be with you, they're always in your mind and in your heart. It's a feeling of moving on, a new beginning.
Because that's what they would have wanted.
Eli smoothed her hair behind her ear, sucking in a deep breath as she quickly re-read the paper in her hands. She fidgeted with the black and purple striped paper clip before slipping it over the corner of the papers. With one look back at Alex, who was standing behind her, she set the paper on her teacher's desk and walked out of the room with a smile on her face.
Alexander Gaskarth was fourteen, going on fifteen, when he lost his brother, Daniel. It was October and the Baltimore air was cool, the leaves on the trees were just beginning to turn from a bright green to orange, yellow, and red. Colors that would remind him of summer, the last summer he would ever have with his brother. Even now, three years later, summer isn't the same. The two brothers will never be able to go down to the creek and talk about girls; they'll never be able to sneak into rated-R movies and throw popcorn at the couples making out; they'll never be able to do anything.
For Alex, the anger stage lasted the longest.
Stage One: Denial.
In the beginning, denial was a stage that was skipped automatically. It's one thing to hear about your brother's death from, say, your parents or the cops. It's easy to deny it when it's not right in front of you. However, for Alex, denial was never an option. After all, he's the one who found Daniel. Poor Daniel, cold and lifeless hanging from a fishing rope that he had found in their parents garage. (Alex would never forgive his father for that.) You can't deny death when your brother's skin is blue and cold and you're the one that has to pull him from the rafters and hold him until the cops show up.
I guess Alex and I are more alike than I would have ever been comfortable previously admitting.
Whispering soft words to a lifeless body, begging them to come back, isn't something that only happens in movies. It's your first reaction, your primal instinct. Your primal instinct is to shake the body, hoping to bring some sort of life back, even trying CPR...even when you don't know exactly what you're doing. Alex found out later that he crushed his brother's ribs, one puncturing a lung that wasn't even working, in his attempt to bring him back to life.
He never forgave himself for that.
Stage Two: Anger.
The stage that plagued me the longest was the anger stage, but this paper isn't about me. Finding out how people cope with loss gives great insight to their personality. Anger is an easy emotion, for some people it just comes naturally. It's natural to feel angry when someone leaves you, whether you blame the person themselves, whether you blame your family, society, some higher being, it's easy.
Alex Gaskarth has always had anger issues. I knew it from the first time he ran into me in the hallway and didn't apologize; instead, he looked at me like I was the scum of the earth and should walk clear on the other side of the hall and stay out of his precious way. And it took me a while to see him in any other light than the arrogant front he always had on. Anger is Alex Gaskarth's go-to emotion, I learned that quickly, and it's the first thing you notice about him.
Anger is instant. Alex could feel it surging through his body form the minute he laid eyes on his brother. From the chair he threw out of the way to pull his brother free to the glasses in the kitchen thrown against the wall when he unloaded the dishwasher a week later. It was evident from the constant arguing with his parents to the fights he started at school with anyone who gave him a wrong look. He was a raging time-bomb and no one knew when he was going to explode.
Thankfully, he didn't.
Stage Three: Bargaining.
Alex Gaskarth has never been a religious man. Especially after his brother died, he found that he had lost any sort of faith in any higher being. Death works in two ways: it either brings people closer to God or pushes them away from Him. For Alex, it pushed him away; for me, it brought me closer to God.
It's easy to blame everyone else. Blaming Daniel's death on someone else was easy but when Alex was over the anger, he started to beg. He would beg his mind and God to send him his brother back, making foolish promises of attending church regularly or giving to charities or helping at food banks. All in vain, of course, Alex would have never held any of those promises. But his anger was only solidified when his brother didn't come back and he woke up the next morning to another day without Daniel.
Stage Four: Depression.
By the time Alex realized nothing would bring back his brother, he hit rock bottom. Or, well, okay, he didn't really overdose or end up in the hospital or try to kill himself—it wasn't that kind of rock bottom. But with anyone who is completely shaken and devastated to the core by the loss of someone they love, they do things they shouldn't, things they regret, things they wish they could take back.
Alex sure did.
In politically correct terms, he turned into a womanizer. People who deal with death act differently; some people find solace in alcohol, anti-depressants, sex, their friends, music, the list can go on. Alex fell into the “sex” category. He can be open about it now, and he is, he didn't mind telling me all about it when he finally decided to open up. He didn't speak about it with pride or regret, instead he spoke about it with indifference, as if it was something that happened and he didn't really have an opinion on it.
Maybe that was just his way of coping.
Stage Five: Acceptance.
For Alex, it took him almost three years to reach this stage. Maybe that's fortunate considering some people never reach it; sometimes I doubt I ever will. He told me he came to terms with it after he found out my brother died. I don't know what to think about that. Sometimes people can move on from their own problems when they realize someone else is going through something traumatic. Maybe he found solace in the fact that he wasn't the only one suffering and he was no longer alone in his pain.
Who knows?
He said that acceptance is a feeling you wake up with. It's something heavy that sits in your stomach, something akin to nausea, but fills you with happiness instead of uneasiness. It's something you don't expect but something you've been waiting for. It's when you wake up and know that things will be okay. It's no longer something you fantasize about; it's not something you tell yourself, 'yeah, I'll feel that one day.' It's something attainable and it's when you wake up and just...smile. You're smiling at their memory instead of crying, you think about the good memories and not how they looked lying in the casket. You think about their laughter and their smile, not the sadness you felt as their body was lowered into the ground.
It's that feeling that, yes, someone you love is gone, and while they may not physically be with you, they're always in your mind and in your heart. It's a feeling of moving on, a new beginning.
Because that's what they would have wanted.
Eli smoothed her hair behind her ear, sucking in a deep breath as she quickly re-read the paper in her hands. She fidgeted with the black and purple striped paper clip before slipping it over the corner of the papers. With one look back at Alex, who was standing behind her, she set the paper on her teacher's desk and walked out of the room with a smile on her face.
♠ ♠ ♠
Only one more chapter until the sequel, I'm saddened by this. Thank y'all for your words of understanding regarding my grandmother.You all have been wonderful throughout this whole process and you've made posting a story that I wasn't quite sure of into something I'm ridiculously proud of.
Next chapter SHOULD be up on Wednesday, after I get back from grandma's. No promises but that's what I'm aiming for.
I don't think it needs clarification but this is the last paper Eli wrote about Alex as their final project; the next chapter will be Alex's paper. So I hope you enjoyed this extra little bit of insight. So thank y'all again! Let me know what you think. :) I love hearing your thoughts.