Perpetual angel.

I watched over you for a long time.

I wanted to keep you close and I did it this way:

• Love you.
• Check on you.
• Take care of you.
• Catch you.

I put you in schools, in programs, in hospitals, in rentals, in rehabs. I made appointments for you, made phone calls for you, set up arrangements for you. I sat by your side – called by the hospital, called by a counselor, called by creditors and police officers and social workers and doctors and your children and your lovers and friends and your wife.

I did this for you, and I did it for me. I did it because your sweetness and your spirit were so dear to me, your faith in me so important, that when it came to the sibling transaction of how it just was, well – that’s how it just was.

I railed against those who looked at me sadly, who said, “sometimes, you’ve done all you can do. Sometimes you have to give up.” They thought decades were just too long to stand by you. I said, over and over, “I won’t let anyone, not even himself, hurt him.”

I could not give up.

And then I was forced to give up, because you left the world.

So I am astonished now. Because earth could not hold you, your wings had been engineered according to some heavenly blueprint. You flew into heaven and took seriously your newly minted angel eminence (how brightly your halo must shine above your dark hair). Your seraph self:

• Loves me.
• Checks on me.
• Takes care of me.
• Catches me.

You come to me in hard moments. You hold a sign in front of my crying eyes and you stay with me patiently until I read it: life is very short, Sis. Really – be happy. You shine a light so I can see the road and wander from my entrenched, safe paths, and never have I felt so certain that I am protected by a guardian angel who will not let me fall.

On earth, you thought I could do anything; you thought me smart and capable and strong and composed in grand measures I never felt myself. Your presence when you visit me from the perpetual state of your afterlife shows me a glimpse of these traits you believed me to have, because I recognize them in you. It is you who is the teacher, the guide, the wise one, the protector. Catch me, catch me, catch me, dear brother. Until again we meet, catch me.

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