I guess there are people who can just “get over it.” Maybe you are one of them. I, for better or for worse, am not. I never have been. And, while I definitely don’t claim that as one of my better traits, I accept it as part of who I am.

In some ways, my inability to let go is not an asset. I can forgive (for the most part) but not forget. Hurtful words or actions, lies, betrayals of any size, I can conjure them back up and replay them at any point. I know there are better things to retain in my brain but . . .

In other ways, though, I wouldn’t change it. Specifically with respect to not “getting over” grief, not “getting over” loss. I don’t mean that I walk around constantly grieving. I do mean that the loss of those I love stays with me. It is less an open wound than it once was but it will never fully close. And that is okay with me.

I think of those holes in my life often this time of year. February and early March have both my brother’s and both of our parents’ birthdays. How many birthdays have passed, how many years they did not have, frozen in time by the end of their lives.

Both my mother and brother died well before what might be called “their time.” My brother especially. Accidents will do that to you, right? One minute you are alive and the next minute you are not. As I have learned, and often say, life changes in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

My brother was my first friend, my closest confidant, my partner in crime. We plotted mischief (okay, I plotted and he was my ally), we shared secrets, we supported each other through good times and bad. His premature death tore the fabric of my life, and the lives of his children, in ways that can never be repaired. And the world lost a man of tremendous heart and compassion, warmth, humor and sincerity.

It doesn’t take much more than a thought of him, the remembered sensation of the way he hugged with his whole self, to have tears run down my face. I still long to pick up the phone and hear his deep voice say “Hey, honey,” the way he started every conversation or to hear him end the call with his perpetual “Give kisses all around.”

There are those who have asked me why I’m not “over it” as if that is a failing. I have come to realize, however, that this inability to let go is part of my strength, part of my being, essential to my full heart.