I had my brother, Lucas Robert Reiss, for 18 years, five months and four days. I lost him on January 9, 2009, at 2:10 p.m. to a negligent truck driver on Ortega Highway.
That Friday afternoon one impatient trucker crossed the double-yellow line in an attempt to pass slower traffic, running my brother on his motorcycle off the road and into the guardrail. Fleeting peace could be found in the consolation that the end was quick; that he was doing what he loved most -- accelerating down the highway on his 2007 Suzuki DR-Z 400 SM.
But even knowing that doesn’t make dealing with his death any easier; it doesn’t make me miss him less.
A few days before the start of the spring semester of my sophomore year, I got the call. I was hungover at a friend’s apartment and I almost didn’t pick up the phone. At first, my mom said nothing about Lucas, and then suddenly the words came:
“Lucas was in an accident ... and he didn’t make it. He didn’t make it.”
With those words, everything I knew changed instantly. I felt like an observer of my own life, watching it pass by, and going in all the wrong directions. But there was nothing I could do to stop it. He was already dead.
I went home to California for the funeral and simply existed. I let people hug me, I cried, I yelled at God, and sat in his room for hours waiting for someone to come in and tell me that this was all an awful dream, that I could wake up now, that everything would be alright. But it wasn’t.
Back at school, no one -- apart from a few close friends -- said anything to me about my brother’s passing. Maybe they didn’t know what to say, or didn’t want to make me sad; but their collective silence made me sadder than anything else. I had never felt so alone.
It’s been two years now, since Lucas died, and I’ve learned a lot in that time. That first semester back, I dealt with it, by not dealing with it. When I missed him, I cried alone in my room. When people asked me if I was OK, I said yes. But internalization isn’t how you heal. And even though it still hurts to think of him, in producing this piece, I’ve found a way to turn something horrible, into something positive.
When I think of him now, I remember this: He taught me to find the humor in life when I had given up looking for it; he taught me to be a better rider and to be a better friend. Those who knew him well will lead fuller lives because he was a part of each of theirs.
And as Lucas would say, “Ride to live, live to ride.”
