The recollection is so strong that I start.

The hasty meal. The rushing. The dishes half done; 1/3 of my pump sumplies in the bedroom and 2/3 scattered on the kitchen table. Interupting packing with household chores that must be done, and interupting those chores with phonecalls and frantic emails about cancelling my class. And interupting all of these with sobs.

Today I am packing for a hastily arranged trip home, borne of homesickness and the strong pull of family. 3 years ago today I was packing for a hastily arrange trip home, borne of the strong pull of my family in the time of need. My brother had died suddenly, and I was going home for his funeral. I was acutely aware that I needed to be "strong"--strong for my parents, strong certainly for my mother, who was shattered. I needed to plan the funeral, to answer the phone. And my diabetes was with me the whole time, the numbers registering my grief in uncanny ways. The gut-wrenching sobs must have countered the cookies and bananas that were my meals--all I could stomach--because I don't recall being high. Or maybe the paradoxically numb antsiness masked symptoms.

As the anniversary of my brother's death has approached, I have been accutely aware of his support for my diabetes. If he resented the attention it brought me on diagnosis, he never complained. He wept for me. He prayed the whole night--a little 10-year old on his knees by the bedside--the night I had a seizure and he was taken to grandma's in the wee hours. We didn't talk much about it, but it was always there and he was always an anchor.

I look forward to heaven. My brother is there. And diabetes isn't.