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7:28am
28 August 2018
Hills Residence, Notting Hill
Solo Piece

Will had passed in the night. Although he had been battling heart cancer for the duration of a year, no one saw it coming. He was simply here one moment, gone the next. His recent check ups had indicated he was fine. The nurses had said he was fine. Our own mother had said he was fine. But if he was fine, why would he of gone so suddenly?

This was the question that I was asking myself as I stood underneath the tree my brother had loved the most. I wanted to know if he had been in pain, was that the reason he had left? Had he not wanted to have to live through the constant hospital visits, doctor check ups and home nurses that visited him each day. Was his life unsatisfying to him, and he wanted out of it? Had he seen the light, and took his chance to escape the pain he had lived through each day? For whatever reason, the departure of my younger sibling had left me crushed.

While we had not been as close as they used to be, I still loved him with all my heart. Even though I had never admitted out loud - to myself or to him, he had been one of the brightest lights in the darkness, if not the brightest, in my life. And now, it was too late to say anything to him. I had learnt over the years to tell someone you love them before it was too late. And even after what I had learnt in the aftermath of our fathers leave, I still hadn't told Will I loved him before he left for good.

Keep living, do not mourn me. I don’t want to be cried over. He had told me in the private moments of conversation we had had. It was an odd request from someone so young, only eleven years old. But the cancer in his heart had aged him, making him grow up too fast. He had lost the innocence of childhood, learning about the cold, hard reality of life too fast. He had been too young to understand or know about life the time our father had left. But the disease inside of him had not let him escape with the rest of his childhood so easily. A year of sickness had mentally aged him, making him older and wiser than most his age and older.

So engrossed in my thoughts, I did not notice when I knelt on the ground under the blooming flowers of the tree that had been most loved by someone now who could love no more. The dirt under the grass dirtied my bare knees, and chilled my legs even more than they had been from standing in the cold morning sun.

It should of been me. The questions were replaced by one thought, which brought guilt along with it. He was too young. It should of been the firstborn, the one who had lived the longest. I had lost the innocence of childhood long ago, and the other Hills child did not deserve to lose theirs as well.

The realization of what should of happened to me and not him comes as a fog in my chest - dark, frosty and spreading fast. A sharp intake of breath and I hunch over in my kneeled position. The crisp icy fog ran from the heart of my chest, through my back and up my neck. It shoots around my head and down my spine. It spreads into the tips of my fingers, and the ends of my toes until I am feeling nothing but the bitter fog that is coursing through my body.

Cold, cold remorse. That is all I feel. The regret I have been feeling has been mistaken for fog. Even now, I am unable to face the truth in a time where I am being the most truthful with myself. Weak. How weak I am. There was so much I wanted for him. A life free of sickness and pain. A life to be free and loved, in a place of only happiness. But I had already learnt at the time of my fathers departure that you never get anything you want in life.

And here, he is dead. My brother. My sibling. My world. It should of been me battling with cancer. This knowledge goes from the top of my head down my shoulders and through my fingertips. It turns them to ice. They chip and break, shattering into tiny pieces under the flowers of the tree. Cracks run up my arms and over my shoulders and the front of my neck. My face is frozen and stuck in an expression of grief. My eyes are so filled with the salty water of tears that I cannot see, and my vision is blurred. My throat is closed and I cannot make a sound.

Here I am, frozen, when I deserve to burn.

I crawl up to the trunk on hand of cracked and shattered ice, leaving a trail of frozen shards of my body behind me. My hands. My feet. My kneecaps. Not even magic can save me now, just as it couldn’t save him. Leaning against the trunk of the tree that held so many forgotten memories, I shiver convulsively, pieces of my frozen body breaking off and scattering around me. Fingers. Teeth. Jawbone. Collarbone.

Finally, finally, the shivering stops and I begin to warm and melt. I cry for my mother, who lost her second born. I cry for my sister, who lost her brother. I cry for my father, who never had the chance to say the final goodbye to his only son. I cry for Will, who had to suffer with the pain for a year - slowly losing every bit of himself as he got sicker and sicker over the months.

I cry for the vain of myself. I cry for the thoughtless complaints I’ve made about him over the years. For the times I brushed him off. For the times I snapped at him. For my ease to break apart so easily. For my shameful self-pity.

I cry for the grief the remainder of my family has been burdened with. I could not, after all, save the idyll. That is gone forever, as if it never existed. My siblings have lost the innocence of their childhood, my brother with the cold hard reality his uncured disease brought with it a year ago, my sister with the death of our only brother. We have lost those days of bliss, before we knew the extent of pain, before the deterioration of our family. Before we became shells. Before we became ghosts.

Will. My brother. He wanted to travel to Croatia. He didn’t know how he wanted to live, or what he wanted to believe in just yet. He was just searching and knew that he was drawn to that beautiful place. But now, it will never be real for him. It can never be anything more than travel guides, childish drawings, or photos stuck on the wall above his bed.

When we were younger, before I left home for school, he and I would stay up late. Sleeping outside under the stars in sleeping bags we stole from the linen cupboard. He refused to be serious, it infuriated me how unserious he could be, but he was as committed to things as any person could possibly be. Croatia. Our family. The short, burdened life he had lived. His sense of what was right. He gave up things without a second thought, to stand up for his principles and what he wanted the world to be.

William James Hills. My brother. You were courage and moonlight. You were ambition and love. You would of been a light in the dark for so many people, so many lives. You have been one. You have been.

And I have let you down the worst way I possibly could have.

I think about my brother in his last few minutes. I wonder whether his breath came in short bursts, whether he died of lack of oxygen. I wonder whether he went peacefully, whether his final moments were filled with pain.

It was my fault, I should have realised. He was in the room next to me. I didn’t realise my own brother was dying while I slumbered. If I had been smart enough to know, if my senses had alerted me to the fact something was wrong, I could of gotten someone. I could of done something. It is my fault - and yet, he loved me anyway. Despite my anger, despite the swings of annoyance that were directed at him. Despite my selfishness, despite my stupidity. Despite my whining, despite the way I took him for granted each day. Despite how I simply can't value life as much as he did. Despite my stupid dumb luck at not having the disease he had and my inability to appreciate how beautiful my healthy, disease free body is. He has said he loves me. I have felt it in his hugs. In his laugh. And I love him back more than he could possibly imagine. I hope he felt it like I did.

“I love you.” I whisper into the wind, hoping those three words will find him in the place he is now. They are the only words in the world I want him to know right now, the only words that I want to find him wherever he may be. The regret of what I have and haven’t done settles into my heart, into every crevice and space until I am feeling nothing but grief and remorse. I can hear it in my words. I can hear it in the weak, unspoken apology I whispered to the wind as I lent against trunk of the tree that keeps so many painful and beautiful memories hidden within the bark.

I had never understood why he loved this tree. I always thought it was a simple tree. Significant enough to be noticed, but insignificant enough to not be cared about. I realised then, as I lent my body against the rough trunk of the aged tree that I had been entirely and completely wrong.

A tree is unique, just as a person is. It is all things a person is in tree form. I would even say better. Trees are not selfish. They provide you oxygen, shade, food. And we cut them down as if they are nothing. They keep on giving, while we keep on taking. We take everything we can, until there is nothing left to take.

There are some people that arise within the human race that are like trees. Albus Dumbledore. James Harrison. Harry Potter. I add William to my own personal list. Although he may never be seen as ‘the kindest’ or ‘the greatest’ in the world, he will always be seen as the best in my eyes.

He loved people for what he saw within them, not what he saw on the outside. The wiseness of his ten years seemed too much for one so young to have, and it was impossible to believe that he could see what even adults couldn’t see at such a young age. It seemed like it was always the best that were taken from us too quickly.

I continue to cry for my lost brother. I cry the tears he cannot cry himself. I cry for the good people that were lost before him. I cry over the cold spoonful of reality my realisation brought. I cry until I feel like I have nothing left to cry. And though I want to stop, I know I can’t. I was told once that the only way to heal a bee sting, is to first get the venom of it out. Only then, will it be able to heal.

The process of healing is the same. To heal a wound, you must first get rid of the pain. The grief. You must first hurt before you heal, cry before you cure. It is the humans way of forgetting, of remembering. After time, you forget the pain and remember the bliss.

And while many say medicine is the best way to heal, they are wrong. The answer is time. For you cannot put a bandage on the scars of your heart, or take a potion to forget the pain for good. Time is the only way to heal a wound that is not visible on the surface.[/font]