Identity Crisis

Who am I?  I'm so fortunate not many people ask me this question, because I always struggle to answer.  For all intents and purposes I know my name and what I currently do.  Who is just one of those questions to which the answer is open-ended.  It's like its cousin Why.  The answer could be anything and go on forever.  Asking who I am is such a loaded question for me to answer.  Let's get right down to it: asking who you are is much like asking someone how they're feeling today.  The asker doesn't want much more than a brief answer.  A one sentence expectation.  I can do that.  And every once in a while you encounter someone who doesn't stop at "Who are you?"  No matter how far I run my identity follows.  My identity is what it is .
I think about who I am now differently than say a year ago.  There's this new word for me.  All of a sudden, society has a politically correct term:  "Survivor [of Suicide.]  This doesn't mean I made an attempt on my life and survived it.  It means I've lost someone close to me to Suicide. 
How am I supposed to answer people when they ask how many brothers or sisters I have?
How should I address people making tasteless jokes about Suicide?
How do I go through Birthdays, Holidays, Weddings, or other major life events when  you know someone who was supposed to be there is not?
And no matter how hard I try to pretend I am just "normal," just an average woman with typical likes and dislikes, I am not.  All I ever really wanted was to blend in.  But I don't.  This thing that tears apart my soul is not visible, but yet it subtly sets me apart just enough to not feel like I don't belong with the herd of average people.  It's like my fellow man and peers pick up on something, they know I'm an outcast looking in.  It's like I've been quarantined from society.   A lot of people that actually  know my story have treated me like I have a disease.  They maintain the fact that we have been acquainted, but they distance themselves.  Suicide makes people uncomfortable.  I get that.  I'm uncomfortable with smoking, but I'm not an asshole about it.  I am not a diseased person.  I did not have a choice with the hand I was dealt.  I didn't go out looking for some reason for people to feel sorry or me (someone actually accused me of throwing my own pity party days after his death.)  It makes no difference that I forgave that person, because those words are forever imprinted in my mind, and this statement summed up the attitudes of my peers about my tragedy.  A very bad thing happened to me, and I can only control my reaction to it.  The growth progress of my grief was stunted by so many negative reactions.  I'm still sorting out my grief.    There is no time limit or expiration date on grief.  I still actively grieve.  It's certainly not the same form of grief I experienced right after my loss, but it is grief, and it is complicated.  There is no easy solution. There will always be a large empty void that can never be filled.  And nobody can save me.  It's like being in a car crash and you're injured, and stuck in the wreckage forever. I grieve for the loss of the life I believe I would have had if my brother had not  committed suicide.  I grieve for the loss of friends, or for the people I think or thought would have been a good friend, but who just could not get over how uncomfortable my life makes them feel.
We all have something in our lives we wish we could change.  I won't judge you for you for yours if you won't judge me for mine.  Today it has been 4,747 days, or 13 years to the date since my tragedy. March 5, 2002 was the day I wondered how a tomorrow could even follow it.  I can't help but think about that day and what I was doing.  And where I would be today if that day hadn't happened.