Is separation something you can’t get used to, or is it something you learn to live with over time?

This essay is about the feelings and reminiscences of a young man who experienced separation from his beloved cousin. The protagonist is unable to get used to the separation despite the passage of time in grief after his brother’s sudden death, and honestly describes his anguish and growth process of letting go of his brother.

 

The breakup. It’s a word we’ve heard in countless melodramas and love songs, but it’s a word that felt particularly foreign to me. I hadn’t experienced a heartbreaking breakup in over 20 years of my life. I had no idea what a breakup was, how to face it, or how to let go of someone I cared about. Then, in the midst of my inexperience with breakups, my first one came without warning.
It was the unusually cold winter of 2011, when I was in my twenties. I was in my dormitory, Global House, working on a team project for my infamous final year university language. Just as my head was starting to spin, I received an unexpected call from my mother, who preferred to call rather than text. I remember the vibration of my phone as vividly as the cold weather that day. Five years later, I still can’t get over it.
‘@@Ya, I think you should come down to the water source, are you busy?’ ’Yes, Mum. What’s going on?’ ’Well… My brother… I think he committed suicide… Mom is so distraught right now…’
My mother never finished her sentence. The words were disjointed, and the words ‘my brother committed suicide’ came out of nowhere. Everything was unfamiliar and confusing, and at that moment, I heard tears falling from her voice over the phone. I froze in front of my mother’s tears, which I had never seen before in my life, and could only respond with a long silence. Just like that, my brother left our side.
○○This brother was my cousin, six years older than me. When he was about three months old, his mother died in a car accident. As the youngest of three siblings raised by my father without a mother, he came to live with us when he was about to enter junior high school because of the family’s financial situation. We lived together for almost 10 years, from the time I was 8 years old until I was 17 years old in my first year of high school. My childhood was always with my brother, and I can’t talk about my childhood without him.
When I came home from school, my parents were rarely there. They both had to go out to work, and I was home alone with my younger brother. At a young age, I was envious of my friends who had mothers when they came home from school, and maybe that’s why I leaned on my brother even more. Every day, when I got home from school, I would wait for him to get home at 5:30pm. It was nothing special, but I loved the time we spent cooking dinner and playing Pokémon together. He was like a brother to me, and a son to my mother.
At that time, the six-year age difference seemed huge. He was much taller than me, stronger, and more athletic. I always wanted to beat him, but I couldn’t. One time, I threw sand from the playground at him while I was running to beat him. Of course, he got hit hard that day. I remember trying not to cry the whole time because I thought that if I cried, I would lose. It’s funny to think about now, but at the time, I was envious and jealous of my brother, but I was also supportive. Whenever the other kids in the neighbourhood pulled a prank on me, he was the one who would come and tell me off. To me, he was more Superman than any other Superman.
Then, when I got a little bigger and he joined the army, it became harder and harder to see him. When he got out of the army and started working, we naturally moved out on our own and lived our own lives. When I became a high school student, I became busy and physically distant from him, but he was still there for me. He would come and pat me on the back when I was having a hard time, and sometimes he would bring me a chicken without saying a word, saying that studying was hard. I was grateful to him, and I felt more secure with him than with my friends. When I was accepted to Seoul National University, he was the one who was happier than anyone else.
After hearing the news of his death, I left all my assignments and hailed a taxi in front of my dormitory and headed to Suwon Central Hospital. The taxi driver must have noticed my urgency, because he was silently impatient the whole way. My mind was racing. I couldn’t believe my mother’s words, but more than that, I was wondering, ‘Why?’ A sinking feeling and emptiness weighed on my heart. I desperately hoped it wasn’t true. The orange streetlights in the cold wind made me feel particularly sad.
I don’t remember how long it was. It seemed longer than any other time in the world. When I arrived at the funeral home, I walked in as if mesmerised by something. The three letters of my brother’s name were written on the door: ‘Song,’ I said, barely swallowing back a sob. I was afraid to open the door, but when I had swallowed my sobs three times, it opened. My eyes locked with my sisters’ puffy eyes, and at that moment, the tears I had barely held back poured out. I cried uncontrollably.
It’s been five years already. I went from being a freshman to being in the army, and I’m now the age my brother was when he left. It was November in 2016. The smell of winter in the crisp dusk hits my nostrils as I walk to school early in the morning. That’s right, it smelled like this when my brother left, and since then, the late autumn breeze has made my nose tingle and a part of my heart ache. I remember sharing a drink with my brother just before he left. I remember him looking at me in wonder as I drank. ‘I’m glad you’re so big,’ he said, and I threw up my hands and said, ’You’ll always be there for me. You can’t go anywhere,’ and it became a reality.
At the time, I didn’t know why he made that choice. There was no note on his phone, no suicide note in his room. But now that I’m his age, and I’ve felt the weight of his silent death, I know a little bit about why he made that choice. It’s clear to me that the world was overwhelming him, and I, the person who should have known best, didn’t. ‘Why didn’t I notice something strange about him?’ ’Why wasn’t I the comforting presence in his life, the one who grew up without the care of his mother and father and had to bear everything alone?’
My first breakup was worse than I thought. I still haven’t let him go. I’m still in the middle of it. Every time I open one of his mementos, I feel a pang in my heart and swallow a small sigh of longing. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. How can I ever get used to it, even after all this time?
I turned to the door. I see my brother after a long time, but I’m the only one who has changed. He still looked like a 26-year-old young man with short curly hair, smiling brightly at me. That’s right, while my time continues to move forward, his time had stopped in 2011. Five years later, the frozen time is even clearer, and next year I will be older than him. I wiped the tears that ran down my flushed cheeks and lifted my head to look at him again, and I could almost feel him smiling at me. ‘@@Ya, you’re a really cool big brother now,’ he said, and at that moment, I couldn’t help but respond with a gentle smile.
Now I really have to let him go. As he said the last time before he left, I’ll be the most supportive brother I can be, not the one who’s too sad to do anything. I’m going to be the brother you’re not ashamed of, the son you’re proud of, and the son you’re proud of, somewhere among the stars in the winter sky overhead. I will do my best to live up to my brother’s expectations, so that one day, when I see him again, I can say, ‘Brother, I’ve lived my life to the fullest, and now you can rest in peace.’
Today, this supportive brother will start his day with renewed vigour.