Suzette Wanninkhof | In Wake of Grief, a Swipe Right

My brother Patrick was killed on July 30, 2015. But, “brother” doesn’t quite encompass the extent of our relationship. My best friend, my mentor, my wingman, my ferociously fast cycling partner, my reason for living—when hit by a car while bicycling across America, he died. And it felt like I died, too. 

I trudged through each day. I stumbled through pitying conversations. I dumped my boyfriend. And, in a rush of give-no-fuckery, I downloaded Tinder.

On Tinder, I swiped through person after person who didn’t know Patrick died. Everyone else knew—my well-meaning friends who discussed loss, my awkward acquaintances who vaguely alluded to tragedy, my parents who were too distraught to speak to me. All of my other relationships were damped by loss, but these didn’t have to be. 

I laughed on my first Tinder date. It rushed out of my mouth, unfamiliar and surprising. He told a silly story about getting his ear pierced on a cruise ship with his mom. And I laughed! After months of only sobs shortening my breath, it felt exhilarating. I told him about my brother piercing my ear the night before he left to college so that we could always wear one stud of the same pair. And my date laughed, too.

So, I met up with more matches—one gloriously refreshing date after another. We’d bike race down the Schuylkill River Trail, make out on rooftops, play freeze dance at subway stations, shotgun beers in parking lots, burn grilled cheeses. Laugh. To them, I was just an outgoing, flirtatious seven point five who talked about bikes too much—not an unstable, grieving mess who talked about bikes too much. 

I rarely saw any of these men again. I’d ghost after our single lovely date rather than admit them into my world of grieving. But I savored those few extraordinary carefree hours. I could tell Patrick stories, and they wouldn’t shift uncomfortably in their chairs. To them, he was not my dead brother, just my brother. And when I’d lose myself in stories—Patrick’s and my hundred mile bike rides and Patrick’s and my enormous slingshot that could fling Beanie Babies an entire street block and Patrick’s and my road trips where we’d listen to every single Dashboard Confessional album. He felt not like my dead brother, but just my brother.

To the wonderful gentlemen I met: to Felipe and Nathan and Ryan and Vishal, to Jeremy and David and Josh, to the other David, to Matt and Ed and Leandro and Spencer and Shailendra, and to Daniel and Jed: thank you. You helped me feel that Patrick wasn’t ashes in the Pacific. That he was still alive. That his heart was beating—more than that, racing—just like mine.

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