After My Brother's Death, Everything Looked the Same

A snow-covered "Welcome to Paynesville" sign stands by a quiet, wintry road.

In March 2002, I found myself back in the town I never intended to return to—Paynesville, Minnesota. My brother Doug had died by suicide, and suddenly every corner of that small town became a site of memory, pain, and reflection. Grocery stores. Truck stops. The local weather report. Everything looked the same, but nothing felt the same.

What follows is a piece that blends poetry and prose—a hybrid memory of the day before my brother’s funeral. It captures not only the stark winter landscape but also the emotional terrain of sudden loss, awkward comfort, and the enduring ripple of suicide. It's about the questions we ask when answers won’t come, and the quiet gifts people leave behind.

I hope this piece reaches those who have also stood outside in the snow, unsure of what to hold onto, but trying to hold something anyway.

Paynesville, Minnesota

Friday, March 8, 2002

High: 28°F | Low: 21°F |

ClearWind: 14 mph N | Precip: 0.00 in |

Sunset: 6:08 p.m.

My Brother Lived In Painsville

I didn’t mean to come back to Paynesville,

but here I am.

This town hasn’t changed.

But I have.

Sat in this booth

at this truck stop before

eaten some pie like this—

driven down Highway 23 before

so many times before,

before my brother ended his life here.

I stood in that grocery store before,

Bought bread and cold meat,

bags of chips and cookies to feed our bodies

while it was really our hearts that hungered

for the why.

But we were all too shocked,

too strained,

too emotionally drained to know

what we needed or didn’t need.

The cashier, seeing my mom’s last name on her check,

put the pieces together,

grasped my mom’s glove and whispered,

“I’m so sorry.”

For God knows what.

My brother was gone now,

and there was nothing she could do to stop it—

nothing any of us could do.

I stayed in that motel before,

slept nightmarish sleep,

woke to news and dry, stale air,

woke to winter storm warnings

prolonging the pain we wished would just end.

I bought those red shorts at the Dollar Store

to use for swimming—

because everything had stopped

and swimming with nieces and nephews

felt like purpose, like meaning.

Sneaking out in a blizzard to buy them

seemed ludicrous—

but so did burying my brother.

I sat sweating in the sauna with my brother’s sons.

Death had aged them,

sucked the innocence life handed them

like candy

too easily.

“Dad always said

you and he were the outcasts

in the family,”

my nephew said—

penitent, reticent,

eyes turned down

at the hot coals seeping steam.

I am here now, but it’s still before.

I can’t tell the difference.

The truck stop. The milk plant.

The Catholic Church. Same buildings

but the spirit and the knowing of the

one I loved

has been taken. Stolen,

Gone.

Would I ever love life again?

I had a longing for the before time.

I had a longing that blew on the cold south wind,

howling anguish, not from this world.

I came back to see if it still hurt.

It does.

The wind reminds me.

FRIDAY

The funeral was scheduled for Saturday at 1:00 p.m. The days leading up to it were filled with naps and card games and stretches of numb silence. By Friday, we were all restless. It was my sister-in-law’s birthday, and she, my brother Randy, and I decided to drive to St. Cloud for a change of scenery. From now on, her birthday would always be shadowed by my brother Doug’s death.

We drove mostly in silence, exhausted. Every so often, someone would blurt out a question like, “Do you think it hurt when he shot himself?” Silence would follow, then a few tentative comments, until another question eventually surfaced. We arrived at the mall—an oddly perfect place for grief, where you can drift anonymously, detached from your life and unnoticed. We had lunch at the LeeAnne Chin Restaurant, wandered aimlessly around Spencer Gifts. None of the t-shirts were funny and all the black light posters seemed flat. After about an hour and a half, we headed back. What we thought might be a brief escape turned out to be just another kind of weight. As the saying goes, “No matter where you go, there you are.” The funeral was still waiting for us.

On the drive back, the local radio stations were filled with warnings about a late-season snowstorm. No one in our group wanted to talk about it. Saying it out loud felt like inviting it in. Still, our minds raced with questions: Would we even be able to have the funeral? Would people be able—or willing—to come? The service was planned for a church in Paynesville but the funeral home was in Willmar, about thirty minutes away. Would the funeral home be able to get my brother’s ashes here? When we got back to the hotel, someone had turned the TV in the lobby to the weather channel. The forecast only worsened as the day went on.

We decided to order pizza for dinner. My mom and I talked about inviting Myrtle, the woman who lived downstairs from my brother. She was in her eighties, and he’d lived in the upstairs unit of her house. I knew she cared about him. My mom thought it was a good idea, so we found her number, and she called from my cell phone. Myrtle accepted without hesitation.

We were already eating when she arrived. She was still driving then, and she walked in, greeted warmly by the group—familiar faces, or at least known ones. She looked tearful but composed. She got herself a slice of pizza, a bit of salad, and sat down next to me.

“It’s good to see you, Myrtle,” I said softly.

“It’s good to see you too,” she replied. I reminded her who I was, and she gave me a playful swat on the arm.

“I know who you are,” she said. “You look like your brother.” I didn’t think I did, but I let it go.

She told me how much his death had affected her. I could hear the devastation in her voice. Then she said something that has stayed with me ever since.

“If your brother hadn’t lived with me all these years,” she said, “I probably would’ve had to go into a nursing home. There’s no way I could have kept up the house and yard on my own. He was so good to me.”

She paused. “I don’t know what I’m going to do now.” Her eyes moved to a large nature painting above the fireplace. “Your brother was such a good man,” she said quietly. “In a way, your brother was a quiet gift.”

That phrase—“quiet gift”—has echoed in me for years. What is a quiet gift? Something wanted. Something gentle. Unassuming. Not loud or boastful, but quietly essential. It suited him. Even with all of his struggles, he was a steady, kind presence for an elderly woman living alone. I wonder if he ever fully let that in. I wonder if he could have. He wasn’t perfect. I know there were times he caused her stress or worry. But that wasn’t the focus that night. She loved him. And I believe he loved her.

Since Doug’s death, I’ve learned a lot about suicide—a strange thing to say. I’ve learned how devastating it is, how far-reaching its ripple effects are. I’ve learned that you never really know what someone is thinking in those final moments, but that it’s rarely clear-headed thinking. Mental illness skews logic. It reshapes perception. And what might seem like a tragic overreaction from the outside can, inside that mind, feel like the only reasonable choice.

Over the years, I’ve heard so many stories—parents, spouses, children, siblings, friends—each one different, but all connected by the same thread of grief and confusion. I’ve sat with clients crushed by the words in a suicide note, and with others devastated by the silence of no note at all.

One client found a note from her husband saying he couldn’t go on because he owed $3,000 on a past-due loan. He wrote that his only wish was for her to use the life insurance money to pay it off. It had consumed him. After his death, she said, “Fifty people would have gladly given him the money.” But he couldn’t ask.

He died over $3,000 and the belief that people would be better off without him. Now, $3,000 is not nothing—but it’s solvable. The tragedy wasn’t the loan. It was the faulty logic that convinced him it was unfixable.

I’ve come to believe this: suicide is a logical conclusion born from an illogical premise. The thinking makes sense—within a broken framework. And often, that framework is built on shame. Not just guilt or embarrassment, but the kind of shame that makes a person believe their existence is a burden. That kind of shame lies. It always lies. But it doesn’t feel like a lie when you’re in it. It feels like the only truth you know.

When I think about the intense bullying I faced as a teenager, I marvel that I never seriously considered suicide. I fantasized about escaping, about being somewhere—anywhere—else. But suicide never entered the picture. I just didn’t think of it as an option.

It’s hard for those of us who are still here to grasp the depth of pain required to reach that point. People talk about suicide as selfish, but that word implies clarity, even calculation. What I’ve seen in my clients is something else entirely. Most weren’t trying to hurt anyone—they were trying to stop their own suffering.

Some have told me they had to push thoughts of their loved ones out of their minds, because thinking of them made it too hard to go through with it. Others said they’d deliberately created conflict in their relationships, reinforcing the false idea that others would be better off without them. They needed that belief in order to justify the act.

Again: a logical conclusion, resting on a false premise.

After Myrtle said her goodbyes and left, I stepped outside the hotel. The sun had vanished from the March sky. The clouds had thickened. A few snowflakes floated down. I stood there for a long time, studying the sky, wondering how we had all ended up in that particular place.

Years later, whenever a late-spring snowstorm hits, I’m pulled back to that moment—standing outside that motel in a small Minnesota town. After I moved back to Minnesota, I remember watching a March blizzard from my kitchen window. The setting sun lit the snow with an orange haze. Before my brother’s death, I didn’t mind storms like that. March snow usually melts quickly. But now, they bring dread. An eerie reminder that even when you know it will pass, it can still feel endless while you’re inside it.

And every year, when the snow returns in March, I find myself back in that parking lot, listening to the wind whisper what Myrtle once said: He was a quiet gift; years later, when the wind whistles, I understand what she meant. Some gifts arrive in silence. Some remain, even after they’re gone.

And so, when the March wind rises again, I try to hold what’s left of him—this quiet gift—in both hands.

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If you’ve ever returned to a place marked by grief, I’d love to hear what stayed with you. Leave a comment or share this with someone who understands.

This is part of a larger memoir-in-progress about grief, queerness, and survival. Subscribe on the home page if you’d like to receive more reflections like this in your inbox.

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Disclaimer: The content shared here reflects my personal thoughts and professional insights, but it is not therapy. If you are struggling or in crisis, please call 911, go to your nearest emergency room, or dial 988 in the U.S. (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline). If outside the U.S., please seek local emergency resources.