Death and other lessons in life.

Death and other lessons in life.

The thing about losing a loved one is that it takes you completely by surprise, even if you've had the past six months to prepare yourself for it.

A part of me went, "I knew it!" when the phone call came in on Thursday morning, telling us that my brother's condition had taken a turn for the worse. The other part went cold when my mother went on to tell us that he was braindead. I can't say I hadn't expected this, not when he hasn't woken up from his coma in three months. I can't say I expected it either, for he had made it through so many major surgeries and was just about to be transferred into a nursing home.

Time passed by in a blur at the hospital, where family and friends debated the accuracy of the prognosis. It was difficult to get our heads around the fact that he was brain dead. The man on the bed looked like he was asleep as he had been the past three months; he couldn't be brain dead. "The doctor said he is," was my only reply for science offered the most logical evidence. However, his pressure remained lowish but constant and I left the hospital late that first night asking myself the very same question.

His pressure fell to the 50s and miraculously rose back up to the 60s within hours on Friday, and we started to think that he could make it through the new year. My heart stopped jumping into my throat each time the phone rang when I was away from the ward, and life seemed almost normal again on Saturday morning. "I don't think it'll be within these two days at least," my mom said coolly as we sat on the couch at home, neither of us in a hurry to go to the hospital.

And then, the phone rang again. It was the hospital, telling us that his pressure had fallen to 64 and that his breathing was becoming increasingly shallow. "I've been scared too many times by them. It was in the 50s yesterday afternoon but it rose didn't it. I'm not gonna let them scare me," my mom said. So the parents enjoyed a leisure breakfast before heading down, while I waited at home for my aunt to return from her errands and for my sister to wake up. The call came barely 30 minutes later. "He can't make it, you can come down now."

And that was it. My brother's gone.

A part of me is still in denial. My final year project's marketing stunt kept me occupied for most of the weekend, while my best friends rallied around me to fill the empty gaps. I've succumbed only to short cries mostly in the privacy of home and loved ones, and the endless streams of friends filled the funeral with more laughter than tears. In fact, the entire wake right down to his cremation felt entirely surreal.

I can't seem to come to terms yet that I've lost my only brother and this impassiveness scares me.