Farewell, Brother

Today I stumbled across one of my brother’s old YouTube videos.

Just a few minutes long.

A man with a guitar.

A voice.

A song.

Something so ordinary that most people would scroll past without a second thought.

But I sat there and watched.

And for a moment, time folded in on itself.

For a moment, he wasn’t gone.

He wasn’t a death certificate.

He wasn’t a phone call.

He wasn’t a funeral.

He wasn’t another painful memory I carry around with me.

He was simply my brother.

Singing.

Playing his guitar.

Doing something he loved.

When my brother died in March 2026 from a massive heart attack, it felt impossible to understand how someone could be here one day and gone the next.

One moment part of the world.

The next, part of memory.

Grief is strange like that.

It doesn’t arrive once and leave.

It comes in waves.

Sometimes it’s loud and impossible to ignore.

Other times it hides quietly in the background until something unexpected finds you.

An old photograph.

A familiar song.

A forgotten message.

Or a YouTube video you hadn’t thought about in years.

And suddenly there they are again.

Not as a memory.

Not entirely.

But as themselves.

For a few precious moments, I wasn’t watching a recording.

I was watching my brother.

The way he moved.

The way he sang.

The little things no photograph could ever capture.

The things grief tries so hard to steal.

There are so many things I wish I could tell him.

So many conversations we’ll never have.

So many questions that will never be answered.

But sitting there listening to him sing, I realised something.

Death took my brother.

But it didn’t take everything.

His voice is still here.

His music is still here.

The memories are still here.

The love is still here.

And as long as those things remain, part of him remains too.

I miss him more than words will ever properly explain.

But today, for a few short minutes, I got to hear his voice again.

And that felt like a gift.

Sleep well, brother.

Until we meet again.

Love always,

Listen the poem I wrote for my brother here

Thank you for reading

 Your DislexicPoet 🖤