Five years ago I wrote https://dirtroaddoodles.com/2016/08/05/lost-one-sister/ on Jon’s birthday. My grief was still very much raw, and we still had not even started the trial process past the preliminary hearing. That hearing was very raw, too, as we watched seasoned law enforcement officers break down in tears as they described what they had seen that day when they lost their friend.

Today Jon would have been turning 51 years old, but he will be forever 44. I guess he found the secret to staying young forever–and he’d be grinning at that joke, because our family can have a dark sense of humor in times like these.

In the past six years, my grief has changed. It is still very much there, and it always will be. But it’s not as raw–there’s a scab there that I don’t try to pick so my heart gushes with bloody grief. I can’t really tell you how I got to this point, because our family has always walked hand in hand with grief; I grew up working through the grieving process. When I was born in 1968, our family was still processing the death of my mom’s little brothers in 1959 and 1964. I grew up knowing I had lost two uncles that I would never meet, and they were just as real to me as the relatives I saw at family potlucks. One day I was resting my head on my grandpa’s knee as he rolled cigarettes and watched baseball, and the next day we were planning his funeral and I knew I’d never see him again. When a family friend who was like an adoptive grandma to me passed away when I was in first grade, I knew she wasn’t coming back, and I shed a lot of tears as we drove away from the service. I went to a lot of funerals as a child–it’s just what we did, and I thought that was what everyone did. I was very surprised to learn that many of my classmates had never been to a single funeral, and our classmate’s funeral in 1985 was the first one they had attended. I was saddened that this had to be their introduction to death, and the looks of utter shock on their faces broke my heart.

My children, too, have not been sheltered from death and funerals. They did not get left home with a babysitter when we attended funerals; they sat in the pew right next to us, and they walked up and looked in the caskets and walked by the hole in the cemetery at the graveside services. Children have to be allowed to feel their losses, too, and process them and face the painful reality that life goes on after death whether we want it to or not.

I haven’t gone through six years of grieving by myself. Our family has walked this path together when we can, even though we all have to walk parts of it alone. We’ve muddled through changing our family traditions, and we still haven’t got it figured out. The hardest one by far has been the 4th of July. One of these days we’ll get it sorted out and won’t just be going through the motions that day. I no longer cry when I see birthday cards and presents that Jon would have loved; I laugh and send pictures to my family and friends and we all chuckle and agree that Jon would have absolutely loved it, too.

I’ve got a support group I attend every month called From Victims to Survivors, which is for the family and friends of murder victims. For a few years it was just the head coordinator and I sitting in the church meeting room talking about the trial process and whatnot. These days we have a few other people joining us–it’s sad, because they are only there because they have been hit like a Mack truck with a murder that has shaken their world to the core, but we are here for them as they struggle with the trial process and “how do I go on after this?” pain. Somehow I have even become the assistant coordinator for the group, since I’m now an old-timer in it.

I’ve also got an online support system on Facebook. There are a number of sibling loss groups I have stumbled upon in the past 6 years. I’m not as active in them these days as I was at first, but I do still check in with them periodically and offer support or insight when I have any to offer. The best thing I can offer some of the newest members is the hope that one day they will wake up and not immediately burst into tears; one day they will laugh again, even if it only last a few seconds at first.

I have noticed that in my 50s, “do you have any brothers or sisters?” is not a question that comes up when meeting new people. Maybe there is some unspoken agreement that past a certain age that is not a question to ask, as by then everyone is liable to have lost at least one sibling and it is a touchy subject. So I don’t have to find a response to that question anymore. But when I do, I tell them, “I have one brother, but he’s no longer with us.” I will always be a big sister, and death has not taken that away from me.

The trials are done, all four of them. It took 3 1/2 years to get all four defendants found guilty and sentenced. It was a bittersweet victory, since it did nothing to bring Jon back. It also didn’t take away any pain when the one who fired the fatal shot died in prison last year. Justice is welcome, and we are happy that Jon was vindicated by the justice system thanks to his meticulous video system and the hard work of all of the detectives and officers and attorneys involved in the case. But nothing brings Jon back, so the victories are hollow. Grief is still there, and Jon is missed every single day. He brought so much to so many lives, and I don’t think he ever realized the impact he was making. He would have been embarrassed by all of the attention, as he was a very reserved guy in the public eye, but he had so much to be proud of.

Do I still cry? Absolutely. But today we will celebrate Jon’s life with pizza and greasy cheeseburgers and loud music, and I hope you all will do the same. Let those guitars riff and scream, and pound those drums until you break a head or a stick, and Jon will be grinning from ear to ear.