“Kevään siivillä taivaalle nousit,
kesän kauneimman pilvissä sousit.
Syksyn viimoja siipesi kestäneet ei,
talvi voimasi viimeiset vei.”
Petri Laaksonen – Kyyhkysenmieli

In November it’ll be two years since my brother made a suicide. I’ll always remember the day when police officers came to my door and told me what has happebed. I’ll always remember how bad it felt when I had to call i.e. to my mother and my sister and tell what has happened. I’ll always remember how the situation pulled me to darkness and how unbelievable it felt. I’ll always remember how in that moment my life got split in two.

In this moment I can easily talk about Jussi. I can tell about the events that lead to his suicide. I can recollect things we did together. I can talk about a project in which Jussi has an essential part. Some strange way it feels like as if I wouldn’t talk about my brother at all. As if I would talk about a friend who has lost his brother.

I’ve visited my brother’s grave often and every time this strange feeling lingers inside of me. Why am I here? Whose grave it is that I’m visiting? Is it really my brother who is resting here? Processing grief takes so much strenght that I have to take distance to that to somehow get through of it. So that somehow I’ll get forward in life.

However I notice that when I’m planning my future I feel the greatest agony and pain that Jussi is gone. When I think about my upcoming graduation where Jussi won’t be. When I think about my possible weddings where Jussi won’t be walking me to the altar. When I think about my possible children and the fact that I can’t ask Jussi to be a godfather.

I’ve gotten over that Jussi isn’t anymore part of my everyday life. That I can’t send him messages, go for a coffee together or ask advice. However I haven’t gotten through the fact that on the most important moments of my life, when I would want to have the most dearest people around me, Jussi won’t be there. When I’m thinking about this moments I wonder how unfair life sometimes is. How much I would hope that Jussi would be there to share the most importants moments with me.

I’ve often wondered that could Jussi have survived over winter. If the year would’ve been other, if the situation would’ve been other, would this happened? Could there be something that would’ve prevented this? Would there be something that I could have done?

With love, Anu-Maarit