I can't focus

Keith-

Man am I having a hard time focusing. I am trying so hard to hide in my work, yet I find myself losing focus so quickly. It is a daily struggle to believe this is real. My life here in Jersey hasn't really changed. My job is the same, my classes are the same, my daily routine is still the same for the most part. I understand that I am not waking up to a daily life without you...but there is still this empty feeling. I am trying so hard to go about my days and just finish what I need to finish. It's just difficult. I find myself looking off into the sky and talking about how the sky is pretty more than I used to, which is actually saying a lot. I look up to the sky and try to come to grasp with the fact that you are there. I look up at the night sky and look for the brightest star, knowing that it's you shining down on me. I for some reason try to find meaning in the sky.

The picture to the left is from 9/11...that was about 7 weeks ago. 7 weeks...that seems so recent...yet so far away. I never got to see you in that uniform alive. You were alive 7 weeks ago, but now you are gone. That is just so hard for me to grasp. How can that be true? I just want to go home and know that I can see you driving your truck around town, or run into you at Turkey Hill. I cannot begin to grasp that those things are gone.

This is so incredibly difficult. I can barely say it at times. When I talk with my friends, my supervisor, my professors...to actually say the words, my brother died. Those words just do not seem to go together. This is not the way it was supposed to happen. I know you were impatient, but did you really have to skip the order. We are supposed to die oldest to youngest. You were not next. You were supposed to still be here. It still doesn't make sense at all. I feel like this isn't real life. That it is just some big joke.

How are we supposed to go on? No one can begin to fill your shoes, they were some big damn shoes both literally and figuratively. All of our roles shifted. All of our lives shifted. I do not like it. I do not like it one bit. I miss you in ways I didn't even know how.

Today is one of the days where I want to scream and yell and have it not be true. My heart hurts...only because I love you so much. And I just don't want this to be true.

Until I write again big brother rest easy...watch over us all and keep us safe from above.

Love,

Nikki