Jaimen Brady

Our Jaimen Brady 

Have you ever had that sinking feeling in your whole being…? That complete overwhelming shatter that puts your life at a pause when the rest of the world keeps turning? The thoughts that swarm your head at hearing the news that one of your good friends or family members would not be at the next reunion. Knowing that you’d not share another sad rendition of happy birthday, or just see them at the next Sunday dinner. There would be no more text messages, or video calls to save or share… These facts slowly roll in. You won’t be seeing them again, living breathing in this life, on this earth, in the state they were before… If you have felt this, you have experienced loss. You have been touched by death. In February 2017, the Brady family felt this death as their son went missing and was thereafter found dead. Jaimen Brady, our cousin, had committed suicide.

 

Forget Me Not

 

To think of this loss… What words could be shared? Of course, there are feelings of overwhelming sadness, frustration, shock, resentment, love, guilt, concern, wonder… That list goes go on. We gathered, as friends and family members, together to share our memories, condolences and love as we remembered the life of Jai…but in any loss we know that this world was now without another passionate soul. A soul that we can only image what he was going through and faced every day. We can look and observe the outside appearance but what if we could look deeper into the soul? We would see a war raging. Jai felt this, and he found his solace, he found that Nature saw his soul.

“School has had my brain all kinds of punk rock, but my soul needed classical. So, I compromised and found silence .” – Jaimen Brady Feb 2016

 

Faces

 

There are many faces in this world. Faces of friends, family members and coworkers. Faces from all different cultures, colors, stories, walks of life and backgrounds… However, we all at some point in our lives meet the unfriendly faces of depression, anxiety and loneliness. The likes of these are hard to manage, weather we meet them in ourselves or if we meet these faces in our friends/family members. How can we come around to express such deep contrasting, mind-numbing feelings? In October 2016, Jai posted the following on his timeline asking only to forgive him as he apologized.

“I’m really sorry I’m not a better friend, anxiety gets the better of me most days. I’m sorry I haven’t been a better son; my depression isn’t easy for anyone. I’m sorry I’m a terrible brother, it’s hard when I’m always sad. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you or made it seem like I don’t care. I care about you all. I wish wasn’t afraid of everything and could show you all how lucky I am to have you all in my life. I love you even if it doesn’t all ways feel that way. I’m sorry” – Jaimen Brady Oct 2016

In response, as family members and friends, we asked Jaimen to stay.To hold on. To look up. For some reason, Jaimen could not stay. He fought, and loved and sorely lost his battle… We live on for him, we fight on for him, we choose to stay for him. If you have loved ones you have lost, I hope you find peace and comfort in the wonderful memories, and I hope you choose to stay and fight on. To help others to choose to stay.

“Such a beautiful tribute to such an incredible and beautiful young man! He brought such a light and a love of nature to all those he encountered. Thank you to Jennifer for bringing all of us together to celebrate and cheer for Jaimen! A perfect day! Thank you to all Jaimen’s dear friends for coming! He has such amazing friends and I love you all! Keep living your dreams! I hope we keep finding reasons to come together to celebrate and to share! You’re awesome! Keep adventuring and keep sharing your stories! Hugs from the mama 💕🍁🐍👣🌿🎈🦎” – Mama Brady, Oct 2017