19/05/2026
**Keeping Things at Bay**
Some nights grief is not loud.
It doesn't arrive with tears, anniversaries, or obvious reminders.
Sometimes it slips in quietly when the house is empty, when the day is done, and there is no longer anything demanding my attention. The silence leaves room for thoughts I work hard to keep at bay.
I find myself replaying memories of my brother Justin.
The silly ones.
The ones that still make me laugh through tears.
"Hey, Sissy...what's on your shirt?"
I would look down every single time.
Then came the flick to the nose and his triumphant grin.
"You fell for it again."
Batman and Robin.
Brother and sister.
Partners in crime.
As the oldest of four, I spent much of my life trying to protect my siblings. Justin lived with me from the age of thirteen. For years, I carried the role of big sister, protector, encourager, and sometimes second mom.
Maybe that's why one question still follows me.
Could I have saved him better?
It is a question many survivors know well.
If only I had called.
If only I had seen it.
If only I had said one more thing.
If only I had done more.
But grief is rarely that simple.
Sometimes I wonder if Justin truly took himself from us, or if the circumstances, the struggles, the choices, the pain, and the people around him slowly took him away piece by piece long before that final day.
I don't know if I will ever fully understand.
What I do know is that love and control are not the same thing.
I loved my brother fiercely.
I would have carried his pain if I could have.
I would have stood between him and every hurt if love alone could have done it.
But there are battles we cannot fight for another person, no matter how deeply we love them.
That truth is difficult to accept.
So some nights I sit with the questions.
I miss his laugh.
I miss his teasing.
I miss being someone's sister in the way only siblings understand.
And perhaps that is what grief really is, not only mourning the person we lost, but mourning all the ordinary moments that left with them.
The jokes.
The phone calls.
The nicknames.
The shared history.
The certainty that somewhere in this world was a person who knew exactly who you were.
One gentle suggestion I can offer from my own journey...
Don't make their ringtone your alarm clock.
I know why we do it.
Part of us misses their voice, their text tone, their call notification, or that familiar sound that once meant they were reaching out. We ache to hear it again, even for a moment.
For a while, I made Justin's ringtone my alarm.
I thought it would comfort me.
I thought hearing that sound would make me feel closer to him.
Instead, one morning I woke up half asleep, heard the ringtone, and for the briefest moment my heart believed it was really him calling.
The realization that it wasn't shattered me all over again.
In that instant, I wasn't hearing a memory.
I was hoping for a miracle.
Grief can make us reach for things we believe will heal us, but sometimes they only reopen the wound.
I remember sitting there thinking:
"Girl, that won't heal you."
There is nothing wrong with keeping their voicemail, saving their texts, or listening to a message when your heart needs to hear their voice. But waking up every day to the sound that once announced their presence can become a daily reminder of their absence.
I learned that some things help us remember.
Other things keep us trapped in the moment of loss.
And sometimes loving ourselves means knowing the difference.
Tonight I don't have all the answers.
Perhaps I never will.
But I am learning that healing does not require me to solve every mystery.
Sometimes healing simply asks me to remember.
To love.
To honor.
And to allow both the questions and the love to exist side by side.
Because even now, after all these years, I am still his sister.
And he is still my brother.
Always.
❤️🩹🕊️
Noelle (Justin's Sister)
Founder, Survivors of Sibling Su***de (SOSS)
