Dear Eoghan,

IT is 30 years now since you died. Thirty years but every day it feels like yesterday; a dull ache, a cold raw numbness that is all that is left of us. I miss you more now than I ever did. The missing keeps you alive so I hold on to it, hurt myself with it, so I can still feel that you are around me.

After Ma died and Dad left it was just the two of us. Lost. You were the older one — you looked out for me. Only two years older but that seems like a lot when you are eight.

When you died I wanted to get in to the grave too, lie down beside you and let them cover me with dirt. I was jealous that you were with Ma. Some days I still wish the same. There was no note. We hadn’t seen each other in weeks. I hardly knew you any more. I didn’t need a note; I knew why you did it because we shared the same pain. I was angry for a long time that you left me; sadness is all that there is now.

I have it all now, so they say, wife, kids, a home, money, everything we needed when we were kids. But God forgive me there are days I would give it all up just to see you again, hear you shout my name, push me around. Sitting on the steps in the freezing cold, just the two of us, you and me lost. I never told you that I loved you, I never got to say thanks.

J

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