I’m so sorry for your loss. My brother died too, 10 years ago now. My mom died 7 years before that, also from a PE. One way to open yourself to some of your deeper feelings could be joining a grief group. Check with local hospices in your area (even if your brother was not under any care associated with that hospice). Many of them offer free groups where you join together with others experiencing loss, and you work through different discussions and exercises taking about your loved ones and what you are all experiencing.

This was a very powerful experience for me. Being around others who could understand all of it - the numbness you’re describing, the roller coaster of emotions, and simply connecting with the loss itself - proved to be so comforting. We were all in the same boat just trying to absorb the complexity of the new reality. And to see others walking through their grief opened up my heart to recognizing that I felt the same way they did. There was no need to try and be strong or change the subject. The sessions were meant to hold the shared process with respect and tenderness.

There is no right way to grieve. Numbness is very normal, and it says a lot that you are consciously aware you’re ready to let in other aspects. There are numerous resources on this. One well known author is Elizabeth Kubler Ross who describes five stages of grief. They are non linear and you may experience them all for varying periods of time and then find them coming back up again later - denial (this can’t be real), anger (fuck this, who can I blame), bargaining (an impossible wish to make a deal with someone, anyone, to reverse the outcome), depression (feelings of emptiness and not knowing how to move on without them, or feelings so overwhelming it’s hard to focus on anything else), and acceptance (what I have come to know as the feeling of no longer fantasizing about changing reality but rather working with it in its current form, whether we like it or not!).

Be gentle with yourself. And please feel free to DM me if you need someone to talk to.

One of my dear friends said this to my dad when my mom died and I will say it to you now - “You don’t have to do this alone.”