All The Ways I Carry Him

There are days when grief creeps in like a shadow you didn’t see coming. It’s quiet, but heavy. Lately, that’s how it’s been with my little brother Austin. He passed away in 2020 at just 17 years old. It happened on the Fort Peck Reservation. There was an investigation. There were questions. But not many answers.

Time has passed, and I’ve kept moving forward, but that ache, it doesn’t really leave. It just changes shape.

Austin was strong in a way I still admire. When he was 12, he lost his right hand in a firework accident. A moment like that could change a person forever, and it did, but he never let it define him. He adjusted, adapted, and smiled through it. He had this spark in him, the kind that drew people in. Always cracking jokes, always full of energy, always trying to make you laugh, even when life wasn’t so kind.

I was his big sister. And like a lot of older siblings, I didn’t always realize how much that role meant. As a teenager, I was in my own little world, worried about friends, music, what outfit I was going to wear that day, and here was this little brother who just wanted to be around me. And I pushed him away more than I care to admit.

But things shifted when I left for college. I started seeing things differently. I felt a pull to protect him more, to show up better. My love started showing up in small ways, texts, phone calls, and mostly in my love language: gifts. Buying him things became my way of saying, “I’m thinking about you. I love you. I’m sorry I didn’t always make you feel like you belonged.”

One of my favorite memories of him makes me laugh every time I think about it. He once told me, with that look on his face like he was bracing for impact, that he had lost his PS4 in a bet over a 2K game. “I didn’t think I was gonna lose!” he said, panicking because he had to hand over the console and was sure our mom and grandma were going to flip.

But he kept his word. He gave it up. He was scared, but honest. And I remember shaking my head, trying not to laugh, and saying, “Well… good thing Christmas is coming.” I bought him a new one and told him, “We’ll just say you gave the old one away because you were feeling generous.” His whole face lit up. He felt seen. Safe. Loved.

It’s those little moments that stay with me. Not just the loss, but the joy, the humor, the weird little memories that show you exactly who someone was.

When Austin died, it broke something in me. I used to fight hard for justice, for answers. I wanted someone to take responsibility. But over time, I let go, not because it didn’t matter, but because I realized I couldn’t carry that weight forever. Everyone involved was young. They made a mistake, and I believe they’ve carried their own pain too.

Still, the loss of someone so young changes everything.

Since then, I’ve been uneasy around fireworks and guns. It’s something I’ve carried in my body, in my nervous system. But recently, I bought a firearm for home protection. I’ve decided to sign up for safety classes. And it brought up a lot, grief, fear, memories I hadn’t visited in a long time, but also a strange sense of peace. Maybe it’s part of healing. Maybe it’s my way of reclaiming something that once brought trauma.

I miss Austin every single day. He was one of a kind. Funny. Resilient. Honest. The kind of kid who made people feel something when they were around him.

If you’ve ever lost someone suddenly, especially when the story feels unfinished, I want to say: you’re not alone. Grief softens, but it doesn’t disappear. And sometimes, healing looks like laughing at old stories, remembering the PS4 bet, and letting yourself feel it all, without shame.

This blog is just a beginning. I don’t know where it’ll go. But for now, it’s a place to hold my memories of Austin. A place to speak his name. A place to keep him alive in the ways that matter most.

“May Creator bring peace to the places where pain still lingers. May the ones we love never be forgotten, and may we walk forward with compassion—for ourselves and others.”

Forever my little brother, Austin. Always smiling. Always missed.