Lost

Lately, as I’ve shared here some of my writing about my sister and her process of dying, I have had…I don’t really know what to call it other that Writer’s Remorse. Thus, I have delayed adding another installment. Yet, I am reminding myself, again, that this- this blog- is more for me than for anyone else.

Does that sound selfish? Arrogant, even? It’s not meant to but for most of my life I have been “The Quiet One”, the listener. And while I am still mostly quiet when in groups and I still prefer listening and observing to talking, I do have something to say. I can drive myself crazy wondering if my words are worth sharing, worrying about what readers will think. Yet, I am choosing and re-choosing to take the risk, share, use my voice.

So here is a piece I wrote 3 years ago. 

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Lost
A story will tell itself when it is time, says Jodi Picoult.

Five days ago as I sat in a dim living room, hundreds of miles from my own, it struck me- like a blow. She is lost to me. The silent tears, again, stream down my face. My husband enters and lays his hand gently on my head. He knows.
Yesterday a man on the phone asked me if I had ever experienced tragic loss in my life. When I was 17, one of my closest friends shot herself and our tiny private school lost one of it’s three high school girls.

“And my sister” I told the man.

Yet she is not gone. Just today I spent almost 2 hours, mostly standing with her as the flesh dissolves from her frame. I hold her impossibly smooth and birdlike hands. I speak to her as one speaks to a fretful child, attempting-without success, for the most part- to sooth a fraction of the fears and hallucinations that hold her captive in what seems to be a living hell.
No, she is not gone.

Driving home after my visit, the tears flowing once again, memories of her hands scroll through my mind. Watching as she rolls out homemade piecrust-undoubtably the best pie baker in the family (an honor I must admit has been passed on to our brother, or, possibly, my daughter). As a little girl I watch starry eyed as she plays barbershop tunes for the 4 high school boys that stand around the piano in our living room. On Christmas day one year, she runs her hands over the belly that pushes out her pale yellow bathrobe. We had finished with the gifts, so it was time to go to the hospital; time for her first of 3 children. As a young girl, I watched and learned as she pinned on the cloth diapers, mixed the bottles of formula. I’ve seen pictures of her pale hands speaking love to motherless children in Botswana. Then, gradually, I watched-horrified-as those hands faltered to do the simplest of tasks, writing legibly, shifting the gear stick in her car. The hands mirroring the bouts of confusion in her brain.

Today, I feel almost frantic. I hum to her, broken tunes, not songs really, not anymore. I try turning on the CD player and we listen for a few minutes to songs she used to love. She reaches out her hand, touches my hair, strokes my face. I look for a sign of recognition in her eyes, but find none.
And it starts again, in a piercing wail “Daaadddy! Where’s my daddy…oh he’s dead, he died, he died…Daaadddy!”. I wrap her in my arms, she does not struggle as I try to comfort the demons in her mind, yet she is not calmed.

So on that night 5 days ago, I dial the phone and hear the beautiful voice of my niece and in the background I hear her sister, and children’s voices- my sister’s grandchildren. My niece knows right away as I croak out the words, “I just wanted to make sure everything’s alright”. And she comforts me with her strength.

And we both know, everything is not alright.

Some things do not make sense. Ever. This is one of them. I think of words I have built my life on since childhood: a yoke that is easy, a burden- light. Umm, not this time. Yet, somehow, I don’t expect it to make sense.

Each night, I curl up in my bed, the little sister. Very aware that I am not the only one who grieves; far from it, we are a family in grief. I listen to a few favorite songs that bring some slight comfort. As the music ends, I struggle to get my C-PAP mask in place and I drift off, able to forget for a few hours. But I wake each morning to the reality that she is lost to me.

I love you sis. I miss you.

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