by Nina Hammiel Turner

Created on: December 27, 2008   Last Updated: May 30, 2011

It has been just over a year since my brother died and the memory is still so fresh that sometimes I find myself trying to forget. I see young men on the street that look like him and sometimes I'm certain I hear his voice. I listen to my cell phone voice mails thinking that somehow, perhaps by magic or divine intervention, the last phone message he left me will reappear. It never does. These thoughts and moments are always followed by intense guilt.

My brother's death was the result of a drunk driver. There was nothing I or anyone else in my family could have done to prevent it from happening. He just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and deep down inside we have to believe that it all happened for a reason. My guilt comes not from wishing I could have prevented the accident, but from wishing I hadn't been so selfish.

When I received the phone call from my father on an early Sunday morning telling me about the accident and my brothers condition I cried and then I prayed. I thought that if I held to the belief that he would get better I wouldn't need to make a trip to see him in the hospital. After all, the trip to the hospital was one that would carry me across 4 states and in my mind making the trip would be a sign that I didn't believe in his ability to persevere. So, I didn't go. I got updates from my father and sister and I waited. Everyday I waited for good news, for a happy update, but mostly I waited for my brother to call. I waited to hear his voice.

Weeks passed and there was no phone call from my brother. There were only calls from my sister and father with good news one day and bad news the next. Until finally, a call came saying I needed to come say goodbye. I received that call while at home alone - my husband was at work and I called to tell him. He rushed home and started packing asking me to let him know when I was ready to leave. I remember sitting on our couch staring at the television paralyzed.

I couldn't go. I refused to go and see my brother swollen with tubes coming from his nose and other parts of his body. I remember calling my mother, who was not my brother's mother, and she asked, "Don't you want to say goodbye?" My only response was tears. I didn't want to say goodbye. I didn't want to see him looking unfamiliar. I didn't want to say something I had never actually said to him. For as long as I could remember I had never told my brother goodbye. I had always said, "See you later" and we always did. By morning, I

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