Advice for Living With Insurmountable Grief
How Soccer Has Saved Me in the Four Years Since My Identical Twin’s Suicide
by David Graham-Caso
A busker strummed in a crowded square, crooning a rendition of “Shallow” that caught my ear due to the solemn sincerity with which the singer performed. It unfortunately wasn’t hard to be distracted from the lunch I was having — Kevin was trying to explain soccer again.
This was not the first time my identical twin brother had tried to explain the sport as it exists in Europe’s top leagues. I knew the basics and rules of the game and watched international matches whenever they were important enough to reach American prime time, but a lifetime of American sports had wired my brain to stubbornly prevent easy comprehension of the overlapping tournaments, international breaks and transfer windows of international football (yeah, let’s get this out of the way now. I’m an American who watches European leagues with usually British commentators, which means I use “soccer” and “football” interchangeably. You will be just fine.)
The lunch with an eventually Oscar-winning soundtrack** was during a few days I was spending in Berlin in the summer of 2019, staying at Kevin’s apartment in Kreuzberg for the first time since he had moved to Germany’s capital.
Kevin had been living in Europe with a woman he met while wandering through the continent in 2017 after losing a job and coming into enough money to afford the backpacking excursion he had always dreamed of. The time in Europe dating, and then living with, another football fan had only intensified Kevin’s obsession with the sport.
They first lived in Munich and Kevin got to attend a few Bayern games. He traveled to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, getting to see the English and Brazilian teams he had followed since his early years play with his own eyes. But nothing came close to how deeply invested my brother became in Liverpool.
He loved everything about the club, from the world-class play to how Jurgen Klopp seemed to be the single kindest and warmest German Kevin believed ever to exist — somehow simultaneously a badass leader who championed “rock and roll football” and also a teddy bear of a man whose hugs are literally legendary. Kevin’s favorite player was Mohamed Salah, and as we ate currywurst in Hakeshur Markt that day, Kevin’s joy in talking about the joy with which Salah played was undeniably infectious.
That night, we canceled plans to go to a movie and instead watched Liverpool lose on penalities to Chelsea in a Super Cup final on a projected image splayed across the living room wall of Kevin’s small apartment. The frustrating draw was some of the most fun I had with my brother in the years since he moved overseas. The tension, explosive excitement and shared emotional investment projected on the wall that night is an experience I will never forget.
That would be the last match I ever watched with my brother–the last sporting event of any kind we took in together, actually. A year later, Kevin would be gone. Inexplicably and permanently torn from me by a supposed suicide I still don’t understand.
I’ve struggled with traumatic grief since Kevin died, and have tried to be as outspoken as possible about it because: a) doing so selfishly helps my own mental health by making me feel less alone; and b) doing so has helped other people in similar situations and the messages I have received in response to what I have written have meant the world to me.
One byproduct of being outspoken about my grief is that I have accumulated a lot of advice about the typically taboo topic. Whenever I am asked, I always recommend that people share their stories as much as they feel comfortable doing so and by any artistic means at their disposal (for the previously mentioned dual purposes). I also urge those who are suffering to try to convert their grief into advocacy, and to take whatever injustice or cruel fate befell their loved one and to help make sure no one else suffers the same end. Doing so has helped me feel enormous pride in the ongoing impact Kevin is making on the world. I have recommended that people embrace the ways the loss has changed them and their lives — I get a new tattoo every year on the anniversary of Kevin’s death in part to honor this aspect of the ways I have learned to live with insurmountable grief.
But perhaps the most important advice I can offer to anyone experiencing what feels like (and usually is) incomprehensible, insurmountable grief seems oddly simple and almost a non-sequitur to the conversation — if you are grieving, adopt one of your loved one’s hobbies. Take a part of their life and add it to yours and every time you do anything relating to that hobby, you will feel like a part of them is still in the world.
For me, that has been soccer, and more specifically, Liverpool FC.
Soccer is inextricably linked with my brother in my mind. As our distractingly-scored lunch in Berlin in 2019 made clear, the sport had been firmly in Kevin’s domain since eighth grade, when I stopped playing after a decade of mediocrity in youth soccer programs made it clear that my football future would not likely survive a tryout for the high school team.
Kevin was always more talented and we were getting to a stage in our lives where more than a decade of synchronized nurture and identical nature had us seeking individuality and distinction, so I happily moved onto other sports while Kevin both continued playing and getting deeper invested in following football as a fan. I joined him at sleepovers in middle school so we could watch World Cup games starting at bizarre hours with friends and teammates, but soccer was “his thing” and I was happy to let him have it.
Kevin’s relationship with the game transitioned after high school to intramural leagues in college, work leagues in his 20’s, then pickup games and fanatical fandom in his 30’s. We talked about his intramural excursions frequently and he would always tell me about the pickup games he played (or usually, about the asshole who wouldn’t stop fouling and trash-talking in the pickup games he played… which we both realized meant someone else was having a similar conversation, but with Kevin of course cast as the asshole…). But I didn’t follow the sport beyond my vicarious association via small talk with my twin.
Then Kevin died. According to the limited and untrustworthy information we got from his wife, he killed himself. Though I have tried to use (a lot… like, a LOT of) words to express and explain the loss of an identical twin to an inexplicable suicide, language simply does not have the capacity to encapsulate this grief.
In the wake of Kevin’s death, I looked for ways to keep his memory present in the world — to try and change how I lived in some way that I wouldn’t have done otherwise, so that he would have some lasting impact on the world. Part of that was trying to write a manuscript and screenplay he didn’t get to before his death. And part of that included starting to watch and learn more about the team he loved so much. Liverpool lost a fan, so I was felt like I could make Kevin proud if I stepped up to stand in for him in that way.
I started following LFC in earnest midway through the 2021/22 season, first just tuning into games, and then following fan accounts on social media and rapidly going from “casual fan” to “fanatic supporter” as I learned more about the team, the Club and the people who make it special.
LFC was a godsend — not just because the football was fantastic and exciting, but because of the way the community surrounding the club embraced the grief of Hillsborough and has embodied the community spirit tragedy and trauma can help create. I had no idea how much I needed to hear “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” but when I did, it felt both personal and enormously significant (and it still does, every time). I had no idea how much I needed Jurgen Klopp’s overwhelmingly supportive and positive and wholesome attitude in my life, but he quickly became a role model. I had no idea how much I needed to see the joy with which my brother’s favorite player played the game, and how meaningful it would be to me the first time I heard one of my sons humming “Egyptian King” to himself because he liked the same player as his “Unc.”
My wife also joined in the new family passion, even planning a trip for us all to see Liverpool play Arsenal this past summer during the team’s preseason tour. We have made as many televised Liverpool games as possible full-family occasions, complete with a framed photo of Kevin, and our support for the club has been a way for our family to bond.
That final point has become the most important as my soccer journey has continued. Soccer is not just an adopted hobby that allows me to posthumously connect with my brother, but a passion I can actively share with my entire family, and in doing so, maintain Kevin’s presence in all of our lives in a meaningful way.
I had a dream that recurred frequently after Kevin died. In the dream, Kevin had left his abusive wife and moved back to the United States to stay with me and my family while he found a job here. Wanting to contribute, Kevin would volunteer to coach the boys’ recreational league soccer teams, taking an opportunity to get quality time with his nephews and to share the game he loved with them. While I would have not appreciated the complications Kevin’s ineludable flirting with single moms in my neighborhood would have inevitably caused, I would have loved seeing Kevin help his nephews and their friends learn to love and appreciate soccer.
With another opportunity to act in a way I wouldn’t have if Kevin were still here — to do something I thought he might have done — I started volunteering as a coach for both of my sons’ AYSO teams. I read, watched and learned what I could and even started getting out and playing organized pickup games myself to help improve how I could connect with players and make their experience meaningful. Soccer presents an amazing opportunity to teach kids important life lessons about how if we want to succeed, we all have a role to play and that we are at our best when we support each other, look out for one another and always try our hardest. My experience helping ensure kids in the neighborhood have an opportunity to learn to love the game has been an investment that continues to prove immensely rewarding.
While definitely time-consuming (an inability to say “no” to volunteering and urge to ensure as many kids as possible have a chance to play that game has led to me now being a coach, referee, and boardmember for the regional AYSO league), getting involved in the league has helped me meet and befriend neighbors, it introduced me to a future boss who would offer me a dream job, and it has forced me to exercise more in the past four years than I did in the previous 20. But most importantly of all, soccer has allowed me to maintain a relationship with my brother long after his death and has helped me build memories and share joy with my sons.
Every time I put on a Liverpool kit or T-shirt, I am thinking of Kevin. Every time I lace up boots, go out to coach, to play, or to watch a match, I feel a part of Kevin still with me. Every time my family and I talk about soccer, go into the front yard for a kick-around, or they join me in front of the TV to root on the Reds, I know that Kevin is part of their lives too.
They are right — this is an absolutely beautiful game.
So there it is, my advice wrought from four years of living with insufferable grief is simply to adopt one of your lost loved one’s hobbies. I never said it would be revolutionary — just that it is what has worked for me.
The hobby you pursue doesn’t need to be soccer (though if it is, I recommend you avoid following Tottenham… nothing against the team, it is just that people already grieving don’t need that sort of perennial suffering). It can be anything. Paint, write, scrapbook, or knit if that was their thing. Follow one of their favorite teams or get into one of their favorite bands. Collect something they collected or learn to create something they enjoyed creating. Just be intentional about making a part of their life that you didn't previously share now a part of your life. It might help you feel like you are keeping a part of them present in the world, and that might help you feel a little bit better when living with the grief that is now a permanent part of who you have become in their absence.
Thinking back to our lunch in Berlin near the end of his life, I wish I had listened more to Kevin that day instead of the haunting, melodic, and unintentional foreshadowing from the street performer. I’m sure I could have learned a lot.
I wish he were here to share and experience this game with his nephews. I’m sure they would have benefitted from a better coach and loved the time with their Unc.
I wish he were around to sing and shout and cheer on the Reds with us. I can only imagine (and often do) how much better this all would be if he were here. But even though he isn’t able to take this journey with me, thanks to the legacy he left and the impact he still has on the world, at least I know one thing for sure — I’ll never walk alone again.
**— No, this isn’t me taking artistic license to inject some clever foreshadowing of Kevin’s eventual suicide in the same manner in which the character in the film that popularized this song dies. Nope, this really happened. I think about it unavoidably and often.
