Have you ever wondered how difficult it would be to live your life as a tight rope walker, always having to balance everything in fear that the slightest event would send you tumbling to the ground, or falling off your “rope?” At times, this is what it feels like in our home. For 9 years we lived our lives walking on a nice smooth surface, never fearing that one day everything would change to where our every movement set off ripples down the “rope of life” that we knew.
Balancing has been hard. For me (Steve), I have kept myself full of distractions, knowing that the more I did, the easier it would be to mask what was really happening inside my head. We have done so many things in Derek’s name, since his passing, to try to keep that balance there, in a household that is barely able to function at times. We live on the brink of disaster at times, and as we near Derek’s 1-year Angelversary, it will only get harder to keep that balance. In a house full of unexplainable and sometimes uncontrollable emotional rollercoasters, one sometimes wonders how you can keep sane, let alone make it through a day. And that is when we discover we have that balancer, our Empath.
Brandee absorbs all the emotions of our family, and somehow manages to make it through a day. She is truly the glue that holds us together. Without her, there is no way we make it through everything we have gone through as a family. At night we spend time talking about how we are going to make it through the next day. I know I have my distractions to keep me busy, but what does she have? She has a wonderful circle of friends and a community to help her through, but then everyone has their issues. But without Brandee, our “rope” would have snapped a long time ago and we would have tumbled to the ground. Perhaps that is why I know we will persevere through this, whether it be 5 years, 10 years, or 20 years down the road. Brandee will continue to keep us strong and help us through our darkest times.
Leave a Reply