How do I do this?

How do I do this? I don’t know how to do this. Someone recently told me that I am doing better than I realize, but I still feel like I am losing my mind. I feel like I am failing. Failing myself. Failing my other son. Failing everyone else who needs me. Failing to keep the motivation for grad school like I had before the accident. Failing at all the random shit that I need to be doing around the house because it is hard for me to find the motivation for cleaning and laundry. Or cleaning Bryce’s room…

I have been doing my best to keep myself sane. I am writing here often. I used to hate writing. Honestly, I still do. I have never liked writing. Never liked journaling. I have never felt I was good at writing and haven’t ever been able to stick with journaling. But this…this has helped me. It clears my mind, I suppose?

Grief has a way of clogging your thoughts. Preoccupying everything in your mind.

But how the fuck do you help a 12-year-old with their processing? A 12-year-old who was already dealing with depression and anxiety? He is seeing a counselor, and I know that is one of the best things for him.

I talk to him often. I let him know that it is okay to be sad. That it is even okay to be happy. That I miss Bryce too. We all do. That we will never “get over it”. We will simply learn to live with the sadness in a new way. We will learn how to live without him here. I let him see me cry when I am sad, so he knows he isn’t alone in his pain. I let him see me laugh, so he knows it is okay to still laugh.

I know it is part of the process. Grieving. For him, just like for me. There will be good days. There will be bad days. There will be good hours. There will be bad hours.

He has days where he seems his “normal” self. There are days when he barely even talks to me, let alone anyone else. I smile when I hear him giggling at some random YouTube video. Makes me think of before…

I never know what will trigger me. It can be the most random thing. Sometimes it is something big. Sometimes something small. And it is the same for him. Sometimes I say something and I see him get teary-eyed. He says, “It just makes me miss Bryce more”. And I get that. It usually does me too.

I bought him a present for his big brother’s birthday. The first birthday since we lost him. I knew it would be hard for him when I gave it to him. And hard for him means hard for me because it breaks my heart more and more every time I see him cry. And I honestly don’t know how much more my heart can break. I thought it had been destroyed the night I was told that Bryce had been killed. I didn’t know there was anything left to break. But seeing him cry? Seeing his heart break more every day at the loss of his big brother?

His present was a purple bear from Build-a-Bear. Purple…his big brother’s favorite color. Wearing ripped jeans and a white t-shirt…common for his big brother. With the company logo on the paw…that happens to also be his big brother’s initials. And a sound pod in the paw with his big brother’s voice from a silly video he’d made. He chose to keep it on his dresser with his heart urn with his portion of his brother’s ashes.

Fuck. I don’t know how to handle the pain of seeing my younger son suffer heartbreak any more than I know how to handle the pain of losing my older son.