The Scamp and the Post She Never Wanted to Write

I really had to psych myself up to write this post. I’ve been living it for almost 2 years, but I keep thinking that if I don’t write it down, then it won’t actually be true. But that’s just a silly little joke that your brain plays on you to deal with a nightmare.

I can still remember the exact moment I called my mom to complain about something stupid happening at the gym. She was distracted and worried and told me she’d been contacted by Matt’s boss, but was waiting for the police to come. Although we tried to pretend it wasn’t going to be as bad as we thought, it was as bad as we thought.

But it was. And I had to call Kelly to tell her that our trio was now a duo.

Matt was my older brother. I didn’t particularly understand him until I turned 18, and then he became one of my best friends. We shared secrets, podcasts, bad TV shows and the occasional edible. We laughed ridiculously hard at our own jokes, fought over who the cat loved more and showed how much we loved each other through mean jokes and memes. He was an amazing Uncle Matt, a good friend, and a brother I am proud of. I am so lucky that he came to see me in July and the last thing I did was hug him and tell him I loved him. My last text to him was a ridiculous comment about walking his cat on a leash, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Today marks the 2-year anniversary of the last time that I saw my brother alive. Before that visit, I hadn’t seen him in person since 2021. He’d slid into a deep depression and was embarrassed about the amount of weight he had gained. A couple of weeks before I got to California, he had finally been honest with my mom about what was going on and decided to make a change. I called him when I got to my parents’ house just to hear his voice. I told him he didn’t have to come see me (my mom was trying to convince him he needed to). We talked about an audiobook that he was listening to that he thought I would enjoy.

The next day, he showed up at my parents’ house to have lunch. I couldn’t believe how he looked. I knew it was bad, but hearing it and seeing it were two different things. When the parental units left, I downloaded WhatsApp onto his phone and told him that he couldn’t go months without texting.

He did make good on that promise. I still have the chats on my phone. About a month later, he was getting ready to move to Washington. He did what he always did and tried to do the drive all in one go. He fell asleep at the wheel, and the rest is history.

The next month was a blur. I dropped everything to fly back to California and then drove 12 hours to pick up Matt’s ashes and collect his things. The nicest thing that anyone has ever done for me came at the towing yard. Technically, they are not allowed to touch anything in the truck, so I was going to have to face the wreckage and get his things, but when we got to the yard, they had pulled everything out, so we didn’t have to. That simple act of kindness is something that I cannot really properly put into words.

When he picked up his ashes, I refused to let them out of my sight until we got home.

The month I spent in California was spent all day on the phone tracking down landlords, calling banks, and repeating the same story over and over until I just said the words without thinking. Although he would have hated it, we had a memorial. The number of people who came to share their stories of Matt was incredible. For someone who was basically a hermit, he had so many people who loved him. I saw people that I hadn’t seen in 20 years, and my mom heard stories that she probably didn’t need to know.

Matt wanted to be left in the woods to be eaten by a bear, but my mom said no, so we buried his ashes under a tree near the lake.

In true ironic fashion, the tree was cut down a week later.

I brought some of Matt’s ashes back to Scotland with me and tried to give him a little Viking funeral, complete with a boat and fire. It failed spectacularly, but I think Matt would have laughed at it.

I listen to Dungeon Crawler Carl almost every day because that was the last thing he was listening to. He was right, it is the type of book that I would enjoy. I taught his cat how to be social and adapt to a world without his boy. I learned to live with grief and the little piece of me that will always be missing.

I don’t know what I thought this post would be, but maybe it was just helpful to get it out of my head. I will end it with this:

Matt was forced to grow up in a house full of women. If we went to a museum or were on a tour, and the three girls went left, he went right.

He had terrible taste in TV shows. He had great taste in books and podcasts. For over 20 years, he never let me forget that I once asked how long a 24-hour fitness was open. After 18 years in the same routine, he was finally about to make a better life for himself.

Matthew Dean Wilder was an amazing big brother. We didn’t always get along or spend enough time together, but he was, and always will be, one of my favourite humans.