Michael Marchetti

Letters to My Brother Michael Marchetti

I still had so much to say to him. In the Fall of 2012 my brother died. I could accept his being gone, not seeing him anymore or doing the things we used to do together. But the worst part of his dying was the unfinished conversation left in his void. So I talked to him in my head. I called to him, cried for him, prayed for him, and I wrote to him. Letters to My Brother is about my journey through that first year of mourning. Peppered with song lyrics of the band R. E. M, and my interpretation of them, the book became my way of continuing a conversation with my brother. At first, my social media posts were a way to converse within my circle. Eventually, I began to write to my brother, sending my thoughts out to the universe, as I would come to say, so they would catch his wind and he would hear me. These posts became my side of the conversation and my catharsis. I'd fallen into a very deep, dark hole and with my family and my faith, thankfully, I made it out. My journey was a personal one. But along the way I began to feel a kinship with people I'd met who were also grieving; strangers who expressed the same feelings I had and said things I thought only I said. In short, I discovered I wasn't as alone as I felt. I wrote this book so that others, perhaps finding themselves in these pages, may find they too are not alone.