My cousin may have sent me a message from the other side, or I am losing my mind from grief

My cousin was 9 years older than me and was essentially a older brother to me. My childhood was rough; I didn't have anyone in my corner until I got close with him over a couple shared hobbies when I was a teenager. That sort of turned into him being an older brother / father to me. We talked on the phone at least a few hours a week for a decade when we weren't living close to each other. I think he needed a brother too.

He died in 2022 when I was 28 years old. I don't want to go into the details but during one of the last phone calls we had he 'jokingly' mentioned that he would send me a message from the other side. He was suicidal and intoxicated and distraught. I tried to stop him. I wasn't able to stop him. The next couple years were rough. I fell into a bottle and slowly climbed my way out.

In 2025 I developed an interest in chess. I remember thinking "This is my first new interest since he died. I'm healing". A few months into my chess obsession, a well-loved chess grandmaster and youtube teacher died under circumstances that closely resembled my cousin's death. I don't want to say it was a suicide out of respect for the grandmaster's loved ones. The way the grandmaster was speaking on his last livestream, intoxicated and making vague allusions toward death, was exactly how my cousin was the last time I talked to him, and many if not most people think it was a suicide. I'm excluding his name so that you can't look up the video - don't watch it. This is what gave me a huge flashback.

This destroyed me. My ex-girlfriend was concerned how I was suddenly acting different when she knew me over a year. I was thinking, okay great, so suicide is everywhere no matter where I go or look or path I take in life. I had to quit playing chess because looking at a chess board just made me angry. The rage at the betrayal, that came back. Rage doesn't make for good chess playing. My ELO still hasn't recovered completely. But here is why I didn't quit.

I had to take a break from playing chess because it immediately reminded me of my dead best cousin's suicide whenever i tried to play. Around the same time, my cosmetologist ex-gf had a customer come in and tell her that recently his father had died, and his father had a bunch of chess stuff, and asked her if she wanted it. She told him "my boyfriend plays chess, sure i'll give it to him".

She came into work and there was a pile of chess books with a note. The note read "here are those chess books you wanted - *my cousins first name*". It scared my ex-girlfriend enough that she immediately called me and told me the details. It scared me even more. Mind you, this was 2 days after I told my ex girlfriend that I had to quit playing chess because how the grandmaster recently died was reminding me of my cousin's suicide every time I played. After my cousin told me he'd send me a message from the other side. I essentially had a nervous breakdown for a couple weeks. My ex girlfriend left me because of how I reacted to this news. It wasn't going to last anyway, though.

I pulled myself together and I still play chess. Thanks for reading. I really miss my cousin.