The last day I saw my little brother alive was 12 years and three days ago.
By: Chelsea Laliberte Barnes
Tags: Addiction, Grief And Loss, Mental Health, Overdose, Drugs

The last day I saw my little brother alive was 12 years and three days ago.

He kindly agreed to drive me to the airport, which, being at Midway Airport on the south side of Chicago, was near his pickup spot. He bought McDonald’s for us, and we sat in the car in silence for most of the trip, listening to Wu-Tang Clan and Eminem as we drove. When we got to Midway, he said, “I love you.” That was it. We hugged for about a minute, and before I walked away, I took one long look at his face and said, “Make good choices. You matter.” I walked out, and little did I know, I’d never see him alive again. Just a few days later, on the 15th, he was gone.

A week prior, he visited my apartment to wait for me to come home from work. He was hanging out with my friends. When he left, one of them came into my room and said, “Chelsea, Alex doesn’t look good. Some of the ways his face looks reminded me of my brother when he was using heroin — his eyes, his skin tone.” It blindsided me. I knew this friend’s brother had been in recovery and struggled, and I knew Alex was not mentally or physically doing well. I expressed concerns with no proof or solutions. It was a gut feeling I had, a sibling bond response. I knew when things are off, and there were many, many signs that he was struggling, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I knew it was drugs in my heart, and I tried to let my parents know this a few times before leaving for California to visit my friends on the 11th. Before I left, I handed my mom a piece of paper with three treatment centers that I found online — Gateway, Nicasa, and the Lake County Health Department. I asked her to take Alex for an assessment. The urgency I felt was piercing.

Alex was supposed to pick me up from the airport on December 15. Throughout the morning and early afternoon on that day, I prepared to travel back from CA, I called Alex several times, and it went right to voicemail. I thought it was strange. Before I got onto my flight, my dad called me, explaining that he would pick me up. I asked, “Where is Alex?” He said, “He’s fine. We will talk when you get here.” I knew that Alex was dead at that moment, but my soul was not telling my brain that, and thankfully my parents spared me a horrific trip knowing that he was gone. I had prophecies/dreams about Alex dying, and I shared my fears with my parents many times. The cosmic connection Alex and I had told me that he was gone, and texts throughout the evening started coming in that confused me as people in our close circle found out. My 11-year-old sister texted me at 10:30 PM, “Hi, how are you?” That was weird. The plane ride home was empty and dark. Besides me, there was only one person on the plane. He sat across the row from me. He puzzled me. He was wearing a red clown nose and was tall, about Alex’s age. At one point during the flight, he leaned over and struck up a conversation. I asked him what was up with the clown nose. He said, “I am headed home to Chicago after six months at clown school. Oh, by the way, my name is Alex. What’s your name?” There was Alex through this other Alex, looking over me as I took the journey to find out his fate. He was protecting me as I tried to defend him.

After a debacle with lost luggage, my dad, looking white as a ghost, walked into the exit terminal to get me when I got to the airport. I knew, but I didn’t want to hear the words. He took my bag and my hand and walked me to my step-mom’s truck. When I got in, the first person I saw was my mom, who, too, was in a state of shock. I said, “Where’s Alex? Who’s going to tell me what happened?” Then the words came out that he had died from a suspected heroin overdose. I must have blacked out because I don’t remember what happened between the car ride and the next day other than my house’s lifeless energy. I floated around for a month or so as we got through the funeral and as the dust settled. I don’t know the word to describe how it felt. Loss. Betrayal. Rage. Trauma. Shock. The feeling was galactic, otherworldly. I couldn’t sleep without a light on. I withdrew from people except for my mom and a couple of close friends.

Before I was this version of me, I was a lonely, scared, lost person. I was furious at the world and my parents for years before I forced myself into intensive therapy to address it and decided to take an active role in Live4Lali, including going back to school to get my Masters in Social Work. I stopped talking to my parents for a couple of years to deal with the shame and disappointment about the blame I placed on them. It took me a couple of years to humble myself enough to realize that they were only doing what they knew how to do based on their experiences and conditioning.

The one person I could never get angry at was Alex. I felt his pain. I understood the lack of control, guilt, shame, disappointment, despair, fury, and contempt for traumas he had endured. While we were completely different people, we shared a battle for emotional survival. We both used substances, people, food, work/school for temporary relief.

Our journeys matter. I am a believer that one thing leads to another. The last 12 years are hard to fathom because the urgency was always “just keep going; keep surviving.” Live4Lali, the nonprofit I started with my parents to support anyone impacted by substance use, has been my vehicle to surviving this heartache, and I am eternally grateful that those sharing in our mission are proud to attach my brother’s name to theirs every day.

When we have been through hell and back, we can do hard things because nothing will ever be that awful again.

When we have science, we can do better; something meaningful and useful.

When we have felt love and compassion, we can freely give that to other people.

When we choose fear, we accept the status quo.

When we seek justice, we end oppression and adversity little by little with every move.

Keep going, keep fighting, keep being.

You can get through hard things, and if the stars align well enough, help ignite a revolution.