No New Memories

I still think about Andrew every day. Most days I feel fine about things, well, as fine as one can feel.

But other days it's more intense and then I fall into a funk about it that can last days or even weeks.

The worst is when I am doing things that trigger memories from our child hood.

• A few weeks ago I took myself to Olive Garden for dinner, and as I sat there people watching I felt like I was getting sucked back into the memories of all the times that we would go there. OG was the one place that we all agreed on (my family really like seafood and Chinese, but I wasn't on board). I just remember dinner being full of laughs, telling stories, and battling out for the last bread stick. It made me sad to once again realize that we won't ever make those memories, jokes, and laughs, all together ever again.

• I ran across Veggie Tales the other day and it reminded me of when Andrew had the Veggie Christmas cd. We listened to it so much that we not only knew all of the songs, but all of the talking parts. I'm sure it drove mom crazy because that's all we would play on his cd player, and in the car.

• The other night I had a dream that Marshall and I were traveling and he said he had something for me. When he reentered the room with Andrew behind him I asked him how he did it, he said not to worry about it because we didn't have much time. I love and hate those dreams. I can feel my dream self debating if this is a dream or real life, and how it could maybe be true...only to wake up to the harsh reality that my brother is gone.

Everyday does get easier as I find myself living in this new normal that is my life. 

It just scares me to know that as time goes on my memories will fade. Sometimes when I think of him it feels more like a memory of a TV show and not something that was real in my life. And I hate that. Maybe that's my brains way of moving on, but when that happens I try to recall as much as I can about him, the past, those hard days of saying goodbye, and look through his pictures.