Clem & us

Almost 4 months ago, my older brother was killed in a somewhat controversial plane crash. He was my first best friend, my role model, at times, and so much more. I loved him. He was the first peer member of the opposite sex that I felt love for, albeit platonic. He let me hang out with his friends and he hooked me up with both my childhood sweetheart, and in college, that 'first love'. He watched out for me. He was my protector, and the one that I would look to when nobody else seemed to be able to help me.
Losing him was like losing not only a piece of myself, but a piece of my past, present and future.
Due to grieving, or something, I have been having trouble completing tasks. Now the 6th month anniversary of Clem's death has come and gone. Some days I feel sort of light and esoteric. Other days I feel very human and visceral. Kind of like having one's still-beating heart ripped out.
The structure of my family of origin seems very unique to me, but some who grew up in my era--the lost era between the baby boomers and genX, might relate. Dad came from a family in which the men were abusive alcoholics and the women were saints for putting up with them. Mom came from a family where the women were jealous, domineering harpies, who found their worth through men. So both parents had really wonderful same-sex role models for parenting. My sibs and I were basically screwed. Oh, and mom also has a chronic, progressive, somewhat debilitating disease.
This is how things turned out for me: Clem was sort of my best friend/father figure while my dad worked overtime--we mostly saw him on Sundays and while Clem and I helped him fix cars or do other projects outdoors. Next came my older sis, Camp. She was sort of my nemesis/mother figure, as mom was usually either working or ignoring us. She was very dominant in the domicile. She cooked, cleaned, and protected the cleanliness of the house as if she were the one who built it. She ruled with an iron fist, and physically was able to back it up. Only a year older than myself, she was always a whole head taller than me and outweighed me by quite a bit, too, when we were young. I became sort of the peace maker. For the longest time, Clem and Camp fought so much that I thought one would kill the other.
Four years after me came Jem. I had longed for a younger sibling. Camp saw her as competition. Jem and I became fast friends. We were to share the middle position as numbers 3 and 4 in the family line-up. After Jem came Cepe, another girl, much to my parent's dismay. Cepe was off to a horrible start. When mom was around six months pregnant, my dad was driving us back from spending the evening with my mom's sister and brother-in-law, when both my parents fell asleep (I believe that dad, at least, passed out) and wrecked the car with us four older siblings in it. Mom broke some ribs and her pelvis. The rest of us were bruised up, but not badly hurt. When she was full-term, Cepe was delivered by cesarian section. From day one, she was a force to be reckoned with, and highly righteous. Early on, she got the nickname "Sister Cepe" because she was very holier-than-thou. Lastly came Spec, he was the answer to my mother's prayers...a boy at last. After he was delivered by cesarean, mom had the doctors tie her tubes. She says that her doctor said that another pregnancy would be too risky. I think thebiggest risk that she was worried about was that she would get more girls!!!
So this is where I came from, I wonder where I will go. I feel I've lost a leader.