My brother died at one week old, I was almost 3. It was never spoken about, his name never uttered again. This denial of grief imploded my family at the core, we sucked it up and never recovered. I lost my parents that day. They went to the hospital and never really came back. I took it upon myself to protect them from feeling any emotion, mirroring what they were showing me. I thought it would destroy them to feel something and I wanted to protect them. It was quite a task. Being the gatekeeper of emotion, endlessly on guard. We all colluded. It took me another 32 years to finally crack.
