On Loss, Love, and Writing Honestly

On September 19, 2023, I was diagnosed with cancer in the morning.

A few hours later, I got the call that my brother had died.

I had always told myself that if I ever got cancer, I would stop pretending I didn’t want to be a writer. I would stop writing what I thought people wanted to read and start writing what I actually thought.

Three years later, I am sitting on a trove of material. Ideas I had carried my whole life finally became more than ideas. They became pages. Worlds. Evidence.

I always hoped I would write some kind of magnum opus. Not because I think I have more important things to say than anyone else, or because I want to be put on a pedestal, but because I wanted to leave behind an artifact that said:

Here. This is me. These are the worlds I made. This is what I saw.

I had to rage against the silence, the grief, and the ugliness. But I also wanted to show the beauty surrounding us, too.

Grief and other hard emotions are not fun to face. But we have to face them if we want to move forward.

I have had a hard time through much of my life. But my story is not only mine. Many people feel loss. Many people feel lost. Many people feel alone.

We move through life without always seeing the singularity at the center of it all: the beauty of the universe in its perfect imperfections.

I love my brother more now that he is gone. His death has made me look more honestly at who he was while also honoring his amazing qualities.

Gregg was not a simple man. He had many layers.

He is central to my writing and to my appreciation of this world. His absence is felt in some way every day.

I wish I could talk to him one more time. I wish I could ask him why he thinks certain things happened. I wish I could ask his forgiveness for not seeing him as fully as I could while he was here.

One of the hardest parts of writing is knowing that, in some ways, I have to make you love people only to break your heart over them.

But I can’t write simple people, because no one is simple.

If you look closely, we all have centers we circle around. Things that make us think and act the way we do. Sometimes those centers are stories we have built to explain existence. Sometimes they are deep truths we can barely hold.

If there is anything I want people to take away from my writing, it is this:

We are all witnessing both our birth and our death at the same time.

We are not solitary.

We are singular.

We may not agree on everything, but I am part of you just as much as you are part of me.

We are not as alone as we feel.

But we are also the ones most responsible for our own paths.

As people, we have to stop looking only for the easiest or most profitable way forward. We have to begin seeking the harder, longer-term choices that will make our world, our lives, and our spirits stronger.

I love you all.