There was a thunderstorm on the morning you died. I couldn’t help but think it was fitting. Your loss deserved an explosion of the universe. Thunder muffled out my sobs, and the rain hid my tears. I mourned, and the world mourned with me.

Stewart.

I was unworthy. I am unworthy.

Your funeral was the first I’d ever cried at. I held it together until they showed your face on the screen. I looked down at my lap to escape your expression, and was met with your face again - smiling up at me from the pamphlet crumpled on my lap. You looked so happy. So full of life. I missed that.

It didn’t match the image of your emaciated body and grimaces of pain that haunted my mind whenever I thought of the last time I’d seen you alive. You looked so small. So timid. The clinical white of the hospital bed and room swallowed you whole. In my mind, you had always been larger than life. To see this so rudely contrasted as I witnessed part of your eventual trek to your death, was jarring. My memory of our last encounter unsettles me. I can’t think of it without my stomach churning, and tears welling in my eyes.

And I hate that. I hate that my last in-person memory of you evokes such negative reactions from my traitorous mind and body. How dare I cling to this memory. How dare I sit there, at your funeral, and cry at your smiling face from a time long passed? How dare I somehow make this about myself? For fuck’s sake.

Once the tears started, they didn’t stop.

Your casket was carried out of the doors to be cremated. Your loved ones stood up and began to move outside. I moved with them. And still, the tears persisted…

I’m sorry for my teen years.

I don’t think I’ll ever stop apologising for this. You are far from the first person I’ve offered this exact apology to. Multiple people, and I’m nowhere near done.

Regardless, I’m so sorry.

Sometimes I wonder what your reaction would’ve been if you’d known about my struggles with mental health if I hadn’t built walls to estrange all of the...