My losing brother
I was only six years old when it happened, but I remember it like it was yesterday.
It was early one summer's morning. Daddy came into our bedroom without a sound and sat down at the edge of my bed. He didn't look like Daddy at all. He looked so small and scrunched up, like a crumpled piece of paper.
For a long time my two older sisters and I sat there in our pyjamas, nervously looking at each other and waiting in silence for him to speak.
Finally, in a strange strangled whisper, he told us that my brother, my sweet little Sam, had died last night in his sleep
The sounds of screaming filled the room. But I...I just froze. I didn't cry. I couldn't cry. No! A voice screamed inside my head. Sam! Sam! You wouldn't leave me! You wouldn't!
Above the cries I could hear Daddy telling us that Sam had gone to a better place where he wasn't sick anymore; he was happy there. But I refused to believe him. Sam was happy here with me! He loved me and I loved him. I knew it was all a horrible dream. I would wake up soon and run straight to Sam. I would see him lying in his bed and I would hold his hand and kiss his cheeks and love him forever.
Even though Sam was only four, almost two years younger than me, and even though he had a disease called Tay Sachs and couldn't speak or laugh or play, he was my very best friend in the whole world.
Every day while he lay in bed I would sit with him for hours, stroking his soft cheeks and singing him songs. Daddy said he was like my little dolly. But he was so much more than that -- he was my everything.
He was part of me and I was part of him. It couldn't be that Sam had left me all alone and I would never see him again.
It was hard for me to breathe. I was so scared that this terrible dream was not a dream after all.
But I could hear Daddy's voice saying over and over inside my head. "Sam's gone. Sam's gone." The