Dear Vincent

[Warnings: Implied substance abused, implied violence, implied child abandonment, death]

Dear Vincent,

I can’t help you.

It took me years to come to come to grips with the cold hard truth that, as much as it pains me, I cannot help you. I have tried, and tried, and tried, but it has gotten us nowhere. It’s like we’re both out at sea, treading water, and I’m throwing you every single life preserver I find, but you keep throwing them away.

So I’m done. But you know that, don’t you? You’ve known that since the last time I spoke with you over a year ago, when I told you that I was done with this. Done with you. Because you make your pain everyone else’s pain, just like our dad did.

You had a son—do you remember? I think about him every day. From his curly blond hair, to the sound of his joyful laughter. His smile, missing teeth… Then, I think of how I haven’t seen him for over a decade now. How you told me it was my fault his mother ran from you when I was still a child myself.

Perhaps you don’t, Vincent, but I remember us sitting across from each other at the kitchen island in dad’s house. Cooking rice and chicken because you were bodybuilding, and I was so proud of you for that. But then you shattered it. I asked you about him—do you remember that? You said he was poisoned by his mother’s blood at this point. He would have been maybe ten at the time. And you just gave up on him, without ever really trying. And in that moment, everything I had ever hoped for you turn to ash then and there.

In many ways, he’s lucky you abandoned him. What did you have to offer other than repeating the cycle of violence that we were raised under? Certainly not unconditional love. Not a willingness to fight through anything. No instincts to protect. How could you have given up like that? How could you live with yourself? Perhaps that’s what all of this was about, in truth. Punishing yourself for what you wouldn’t do, or couldn’t do.

Everything would be so much better if you had cleaned yourself up, Vincent. You didn’t just owe it to yourself. You owed it to me. To your son. To your mother. To our father. But every time you got close to happiness, it would all just melt away in an instance, like you couldn’t help but sabotage yourself.

This is something I gave up on a long time ago, big brother. Or at least…it’s something I told myself I gave up on. Even if I cut myself off from you for my own health and well-being, some part of me kept thinking, kept hoping that you might pull it all together. Third time’s the charm, was a repetitive refrain when I kept hearing about your most recent parole from everyone.

I hadn’t realized how deep that hope ran. Not until it was dashed by the cold finality of death.

You never had the experience of identifying a body in the morgue, have you Vincent? You would have found it fascinating—your sense of humor was always wicked with a sharp slice of macabre. I found it less so. Seeing you like that—

I can’t even begin to think of the words to tell you the sheer horror of it all. There’s so much grief there. You’re dead. There’s a grim finality to that. There will be no ‘getting better’ for you. There will be no reunification with us. All I can do now is try to forgive you. To forgive myself. To claw some sort of closure out of this.

It hurts. I miss you. I hate you.

I love you.

Rest in Peace, Vincent.

P.S.

I don’t only remember the bad in you. I remember the good times, too. When I was a kid, you would pick me up and put me on your shoulders, and it felt like I was tall enough to touch the sky.

You showed me how to make spaghetti. It wasn’t very good, but I didn’t care. We choked it down and laughed all the while. Burnt garlic and onions and half-cold tomato sauce; I can still taste it if I think too hard.

So many of my musical interests started with you at the root of them all. You taught me not just to sing along to the words, but to really listen to what the lyrics were saying and pick apart the meanings and layers.

You took me to my very first concert. Heavy metal. The very sound vibrating in my bones. A fight broke out three feet away from us, and you held me in your arms to make sure I was safe, that our time together wasn’t ruined. And it wasn’t; we finished the concert together, and the next day, you surprised me by taking me to a theme park for the first

How many of my first job interviews did you take me to? Giving me tips. Telling me I could do better than twelve hour days at warehouses. Telling me to be better than you and to follow my passions. No one else ever believed in me the way that you did, and I always wanted to do the same for you, and I tried so hard but after every backslide, more and more of my faith was chipped away. I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive myself for it.

It isn’t that there wasn’t any good in you. Of all the people in the world, I saw all the best parts of you and I feel lucky for that. One day, I’ll wake up and I’ll think of you, and it won’t be like a shard of ice to my heart. One day I’ll think of you and it won’t be full of bitterness and anger warring with love and regret. I’ll just smile. That’s forgiveness, I think.

I’ll tell my children that they had an uncle, before they were born, and how much he would have loved them. I’ll tell them all the good parts about you, the parts of you that I loved, because that’s how I want you to live on. Not as a regret, but as a good memory.