September 11, 2011. 

Kevin Eugene Phelps, died.

And in return, so did I.

For all intents and purposes.

My baby brother. One of my best friends ever. My jokester. My loud belly laugher.

My intellect. My confidante. My muse. My sanity. My referee. My problem solver.

One of the loves of my life...

On Wednesday, September 11, 2013, Kevie will have passed on to his permanent and spiritual walkabout, 2 years ago. 9/11/11. Complications of over 20 years of being HIV positive. That day was the most difficult day of my life. Easy cliche to say...

I hope nothing ever surpasses that take you to your knees kind of wipeout.. . I literally could not stand the weight and pressure of pain like that, ever again...

The questions... oh so many questions... Everyone meaning well, trying so hard to help, but seldom knowing how... Sometimes you shove your anger at this loss, in their face, because that takes the focus off the pain in your entire physical being... For a few seconds... Even as it leaves a rift in your living relationships. Kevie would hate that....

You feel so heavy... As if every boulder in the world fights for position on your shoulders... And even when you force yourself to ignore it, the WEIGHT, that horrible, heavy, onerous weight, remains inside... Where you will never reach it, never exorcise it, never release it...

Time heals nothing. Laughter heals nothing. The kindest and most thoughtful words, heal nothing. The patience of other, heal nothing. The heartfelt gifts, the generous words and efforts, heal nothing... The ONLY healing, will take place if Kevie comes back home, where he belongs. Only now he never will. And if you're anything like me, you then pretend he never left. You fool yourself, so you don't wait in vain for the impossible. The miracle you'll never receive...

You keep a shirt you grab from his dirty clothes, by your bedside. His fragrance becomes him, if you close your eyes and inhale. Hugging his shirt is the first thing you do in the morning; the last thing you do before closing your eyes to the nightmares ahead. And then you awaken and start over again. All with the Pagliacci smile plasted across your face. Grateful you have at least that to feel normal, to look normal, to fool everyone into thinking you're 'getting through it'. 'Dealing with it.' 'Grieving at your own pace'. You see Kevie everywhere... In every song... Every movie... EVERYWHERE... His presence is literally so palpable, you reach out and expect to feel the slight pressure of his grabbing your hand gently, squeezing to reassure you that this is merely the worst nightmare of all time... 

My baby brother. I diapered you, fed you, woke up at nite with you, put you down for naps and bedtime, burped you, changed your diaper hundreds of times, potty trained you, carried you, mothered you... In my heart, you are a bit my child too. You permeate every cell of my soul... Every fiber of my being... Every waking thought... I talk to you all the time... Ask you questions... Hold conversations... Only I have to reply, for you. You make not a sound...

The daily day goes by, a second, a step, at a time... You do your best, knowing you're doing so much, so wrong... But so what, Kevie can't die again because of it... You hide your anger so well, you have no idea you're even angry... You think this is your unique way of grieving... Your latent loner starts creeping to the surface; you begin hiding from family, friends... Many of them are in the same boat, the same grief, and how can you help them, you are hanging on by a thread thinner than a strand of human hair... 

You read. You research grief. You try applying it to your situation. But life's weight never lifts.

More death. More cogs in life's wheels. Par for the course by now. You try doing things you used to love. You try doing new things to jump start YOU, again. You wish, you pray, for life to be as light as it was before, but life laughs in your face... Feelings, it seems to grin, are for feeling... 

If the pain doesn't give you a break soon, you just know your heart will stop... And then you begin relying on that. Que sera sera, right? Your internal darkness threatens to claim you. More times than you're afraid to count. You wouldn't hurt yourself, you can't worry everyone or cause them extra pain. But if your heart stops, you believe you'll be too exhausted to fight for your survival... 

Since you can't accept, you can't move forward... Since you don't want to forget a thing, you have to remain behind, in the past, during your present. You have no purpose, other than keeping your word and doing what others need you to do. Why bother with makeup? New clothes? Chilling at the beach? Kevie will still be dead... Your head fights the weight of your soul, constantly... It's exhausting...

You've given recovery from this tragic and devastating loss, your best shot. You've done everything asked of you, and more. You've believed in the relief of grief worked on and dealt with. THERE IS NO HEALING. 

Then one day, when you least expect it, an online friend who's sense of family and sense of humor has given you many smiles after meeting her, tells you something that will change your life. Unlock a door. Allow you to proceed. She says:

'You don't ever get though or over things like this. You just learn to live with them.'

Oprah Aha Moment. Lightbulbs going off over my head. Bells clanging. By jove, I think she's got it! In my bones, I FEEL the difference. Nothing in this entire process has made more sense than this. Ramona had lost her brother as well, years ago. And she GOT it. And I cried with relief. With hope. And I told her, publicly, that I did. Who knows how many were keeping grief bottled inside awaiting the inevitable and tragic implosion? Ramona Y.F. gave me life that day, and I'm forever grateful to her for it.

Such clarity came to me after that. Kevie and I agreed, always, that life is for living. A gift to be treasured. I'd already tried cherishing it, moving along with happier times, and everyone was pretty sure I was succeeding. No one had any idea, til maybe now, how poorly I was failing my own mantra. Not even myself, for the longest time. 

Grief of this magnitude made me realize that life would never be the same. Kevie would never return to us. EVERYTHING was different. Changed. Forever altered. We were entering a new 'normal', and we had no say so at the entrance. We only had options for how we chose to enter. 

If I so choose, I can grieve until my last breath. It's not very productive, but it's my option. I choose what Kevie chose to give all of us his last half of his life: LIFE. We were able to share so much of a beautiful life, because he chose to fight his condition and LIVE. And as Wednesday comes churning closer, I feel better able to let him soar, wherever and however, he needs to fly. He's babysat me long enough, his memory has dried my tears oh so many times, his presence in my heart has kept me steady when I wobbled like a new born colt. 

Am I healed? Of course not. Can never happen. There will still be tears. That heaviness. Difficulties in navigating a life I would never thought would come to pass; I'm older than Kevie, I should've gone first. My world has dimmed, for eternity. Pain? It's permanent. But I learn to live with it, because it lets me know I'm alive. 

And life, is for the living... 

Kevie taught me that...

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY BROTHERS...

February 25th was the 48th birthday of my brothers who were twins, Kevin Eugene (on the left), and Kenneth Dean (on the right). 

They were born during the snow plowing of a blinding blizzard in 1965. How my mother, who had born 4 daughters by that time, didn't birth them in a snow drift, is beyond me! The snow was up to the windows as we followed the snow plow on the single lane it forged up a major highway trying to reach, 1. Our friends' house for us girls to stay while Mom was in the hospital. And 2. The hospital 20 miles from there, since twins can be a high risk birth.

'The boys' as they were known until adulthood, were born 4 minutes apart, didn't look a thing alike, and were as different in personalities as they were in looks. 

They spent their childhood in the usual all-boy pursuits of trying to kill each other, with such inspired weaponry as their glass milk bottles (initially, as babies, that's all they had in hand!), Hot Wheels cars, lawn darts/jarts, croquet mallets, even graduating to BB guns at one point. But behind that attempted cranial cracking was a bond that would never waiver. 

In those days, boys did boy things. Masculine. Daredevil'ish. Turns out Kev had ideas of his own, even as a toddler. He was just as good playing with Barbie and tea parties as he was lobbing a Hot Wheel car off its track to knock out Kenny's eye. Thankfully his aim was off that time! In those dark ages, when everyone was afraid of everything that was different and/or that they didn't understand, Kevin became more and more of a pariah the older he became. Turns out, he was gay. Something he knew from around age 6, though he had no name for it at that time. Neither did we. The girlish'ness didn't go unrecognized, but we knew nothing about 'gays', how they 'got that way', how to 'fix it', how to realize our lives did not need homophobes in them. 

Kevie was loud and proud as he grew into a teenager. At age 15, he officially 'came out', and from then on, was liberated from the chains of living a life that's a lie, one that will suck your life's blood right from the marrow. Dad beat him up and kicked him out. He lived with my sister, and then with me, as he finished high school. He and Dad made up not long after he was banned from his childhood home. Dad didn't understand, but he eventually got it, that Kevin was his child, period. They had a pretty great relationship from then on. Mom always accepted and loved Kevin, period. They were great friends. With the support of his most important family members and friends, Kev went on to live a life full of happiness. No one I ever knew ever spent a day as grateful to live in it, as Kev. No one was as much fun to be around, as Kev. Wicked sense of humor, literally, no joke. Irreverent. As silly as a child. Animal lover and advocate. As articulate as Stephan Hawking if he chose to be. A connossieur of all things French, and fluent in the language. His greatest passion became advocating for AIDS awareness. July 23, 1992, he was diagnosed HIV positive. The first couple of years were the roughest. He decided not to view life as awaking with a death sentence hanging over his head every morning, wondering when he would one day die a horrible death. He decided he happened to be a person who had HIV. And that the disease wouldn't define him, nor take away any quality from his life, until he could no longer beat it. 

As he got older, he felt a fervent need to educate others about the perils of being HIV positive. AIDS was declining in media coverage, yet not declining in new cases all over the world. He sat on a panel of doctors and educators that spoke to college and high school students, especially in Bloominton, IN, where he lived. He shared his life, the highs and lows, with these kids, many of whom came after the presentation to ask more questions and thank him for doing so. It was one of the highlights of his entire life, for his life to mean something to them.

As he aged, his health began to decline, and the AIDS cocktail he had taken for years, began to take a mortal toll on his organs. Kevie was so very many things to me... My brother... Like my child... My confidante... A best friend... Someone who loved without a single string, ever... MY FRIEND. He called me 'GoddessBlossom' and when I asked why, he merely said 'Because you are...'. He was my 'BottomBlossom'. (You may not want to ask haha.) We were thick as thieves, and I could barely remember life without him in it.

On September 11, 2010, he never awoke.

He was found laying on his couch, cell phone charging on the table in front of him, tv on (as always when he fell asleep). 

He appeared so sleepily at peace... 

He had made it 20 years with HIV/AIDS.

His story was the first with which I began my ROBA blog.

My concept of starting ROBA was to share with others all of the beautiful things, people, places, fun, etc, that I have been so fortunate to have found in a well-journeyed life.

Kevin is the most-beautiful of them all...

Seventeen months have come and gone since Kevin fell into a permanent sleep. This has been the most difficult year of my life, and of many of the lives of the family and friends who also knew and loved him. You don't enjoy a life filled with such a life force as Kevin, without your entire universe altering at his passing.

Kevin loved being loved. His worst fear was being forgotten. 

I hope he realizes there is no chance of that. 

As long as I breathe, I'll be singing his praises, and there will be those who pick up that thread, when I'm gone.

Life will never be the same, never as bright, never as fun, never as happy. I learn to live with this, and live to learn how to continue with this new life. It's time. 

I feel like a new-born colt, stumbling into a new world unbuffered by Kev's influence on it. I write this so you will know his name, and maybe remember him in some large or small way. So his name lingers everywhere, even if only from time to time. I write about my brother so that no one will become complacent of HIV/AIDS. Life can be lived with it; Kevin showed us all that truth. Kevin always lived life, wrung every iota of silver from every lining, his entire life! We could all learn a lesson from that. 

AIDS is not over. It is not cured. 

When Kev died, he'd had his regular AIDS exam about a month before. His viral load was undetectable. His T-cell count was good. There was no indication his time was running out... 

His message would strongly be:

GET TESTED.

BE SAFE.

LISTEN TO YOUR DOCTORS.

And if you have HIV/AIDS, don't give up.

Don't let AIDS tell you how to live. Get yourself as healthy as you can and let that MoFo follow YOU around, instead of dictating your life.

And my brother Kenny?! He was Kevin's most-fervent advocate. In his quiet way, he helped fight Kev's battles for, and with, him. He was ALWAYS there for Kev, as macho and subtle as Kev was as flaming and extroverted. And he's just as loved!

P.S. This is the final paragraphs of Kev's blog; for some reason, the text changed colors on me and I'm not blog-literate enough as yet to figure out what happened or fix it on the main blog... Please don't miss the finale; it's one of the most important parts! Again, thank you for reading!

Kev's worst nightmare was that he'd be forgotten. He'd had no children to carry on his name, and he felt he'd leave without a valuable legacy to be remembered by. I intend to make sure no one forgets him, and to introduce him to the world, if possible, in some very meaningful way that would make him proud. What I've shared here is one drop in a 100-gallon bucket of all things Kevie. He had more facets to his heart, personality, and soul, than Liz Taylor's Krup diamond!  If you'd care to get to know Kev more, witness his wit, fall for his folly, his Facebook page is public; he never had anything to hide, is how he proclaimed it. Kevin E Phelps is how to find it. Twitter is: kevinephelps. Find him under his name at YouTube.com and Singsnap.com. MEET my brother, please!  You won't be sorry. His mission was to let young people know that HIV/AIDS is NOT over. Don't let your guard down! Be tested!  And for those suffering already with this disease, it's still a nightmare, but it's controllable and worth the fight. He lived over 19 years longer than he was 'supposed' to. He defied the odds, yet he did nothing special or better than anyone else, to do so. He just remained positive, and appreciated the life he had, while he had it. 

When Kev was created, there was no mold to break. Cos there was no mold! He was traditional but not traditional. He played with dolls growing up but could build a house from foundation to finish, including landscaping. He was passionate and serious, together and separately. He was life personified; no one would tell you any differently. He wanted a Celebration of Life, not a weepy funeral service. And that's what he got. Laughter, tears both sad and happy, loved ones of all ages, genders, backgrounds, coming together to celebrate the wonder that was Kev. We toasted the blessing that was Kev with a shot of Jim Beam; his favorite. I think I felt him smile! I shall keep our pacts, our mantra's, and all the beautifully invaluable lessons life with Kev has taught me. I think the reason I can't feel that broken 'bond'? Because he's not gone! I feel his presence everywhere, in everything. I'm learning to see the world anew, from his perspective and viewpoint. As long as I breathe, Kev will never be forgotten. In many many ways, I hope to make sure of that. I love you, Mon BB... forever past infinity... XOXOX

~* PEACE *~