Over the past few days my sleeping situation was getting worse.

I’d been getting up at between 3am and 4am, going downstairs and sitting and just staring. I think the magnitude of what had happened hadn’t really sunk in. Every waking minute I was thinking about James. What could I have done differently?? Was he upset when he did it?? I knew why he had done it and who and what had caused him to do it, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with.

This was my older brother. It was simply unimaginable that we wouldn’t be in each others lives until late into our twilight years. It was like a terrible horror film on a loop in my mind that wouldn’t turn off even if I shut my eyes. That’s why I was desperate for sleep just to have some respite from our new reality.

It may have been around this time (I can’t recall fully) when I got a doctors appointment for sleeping tablets. They were very sympathetic around the circumstances and gave me a weeks supply. The medication didn’t really do a great deal but I think they were sufficient to offer me a little more sleep than I had been getting.