I have just finished a twelve week memoir writing course which I totally enjoyed taking. I thought I would take a moment to share my final writing assignment which was also linked to a five minute reading.
My biggest fear is that I will feel this way for the rest of my life. My second biggest fear, is that I won’t.
Poignant words, which still hold true for me today.
Distant and not-so-distant memories flooding my senses in an unorganized manner. Each one with a sense of urgency, a fear of being forgotten. Tumbling over each other. Fading into each other. Speaking to my Soul. Emanating from my Soul.
Today, March 28th, is one of two days in the year that my body faithfully responds to, with a knowing that is felt at a Soul level. The day finds me in deep reflection, my heart heavy, and full of almost unbearable memories. Somehow a comfortable well-known existence that is welcomed. It wasn’t always like this. For years it was a day for celebrating, replaced for about six years as a day I dreaded and could barely tolerate. Then, slowly, over the past two years I’ve emerged from the cocoon which held me firmly in its grasp. This is part of who I am now. There is comfort and peace in the treasured memories my heart holds. Some so painful, my heart instantly breaks over and over again. A pain so intense, it will never diminish to a time it when it won’t hurt.
Thursday, October 30th, 2008 I was doing supper dishes and suddenly felt so strange. The feeling foreign, empty and not going away. I went to the living room, turned on the television, and tried not to feel. Not to know. I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t deny it. I found my husband and barely whispered, “Something’s wrong. I can’t feel Janet.” Unable to say anything else, I returned to the living room and the unseen television show.
I don’t know how much time passed before my cell phone rang. I was still sitting on the couch, dish towel in hand, daylight turned to darkness, television on, and knowing I did not want to answer my phone. It kept ringing. I had to answer it.
Softly. Tentatively. Cautiously. “Hello?”
The voice was muffled and broken, “Alice, its Billy. I don’t know how to tell you this.”
The words, “I can’t hear you” sounded desperate and foreign to me as they escaped my lips. A more accurate response would have been, “I don’t want to hear you.”
He started again, “I don’t know how to tell you this. Oh God!! … It’s Janet.”
“Please Billy … Don’t.”
Then I heard the words which could never be taken back.
“Janet is gone.”
A deafening silence held the space for a moment before he started to cry.
I started screaming. Still holding the phone. No longer talking to Billy. I felt my husband Mac pull the phone from me with his left hand, while struggling to hold me up with his right arm. I could hear him. He sounded so far away. Asking Billy what happened. I could still hear the screaming. My screaming. Mac telling Billy he would call him back in a minute. Mac trying to hold me up as I slipped to the floor, no longer able to hold my own weight. My heart explosively shattering into millions of pieces. My baby sister was dead. Killed in a head-on highway accident, on her way home from work.
At her gravesite I place a bouquet of two roses. One white, one pink, with delicate fern and baby’s breath tucked in among the roses, and tied together with soft pink ribbon. An identical bouquet in my car. I touch her laser engraved portrait. The cold of the black granite monument echoing how I feel. Desolate. Alone. Yearning for another moment of her arms embracing me in a comforting hug. I release two helium balloons, one white, and one pink, one at a time. The first balloon for her. Once out of sight, I release my balloon, watching until I can no longer see it. Wishing I didn’t have to visit her like this. Not wanting to stay. Not able to leave. The tears still falling. The forty-one years of memories still tumbling. I return to my car. Leaving my baby sister behind once again.
I hear her voice, her laughter, and sense her presence and never ending happiness. We’re at a family celebration, spending a day shopping, feeding her horses, talking on the phone, renovating the rental home we bought, cooking Christmas dinner together, and simply enjoying each other immensely. We share an unconditional love, which fits each of us perfectly.
It’s been two years since my sister died. I wake for a moment from my dream-like state. It’s 2010. I’m struck by the passage of time. I marvel at how I mark my time now. Before and after Janet’s death. I remember counting the days, then the weeks, months, and years. I marvel at how similar it is to when a baby is born, nine days old, twelve weeks, six months, fifteen months, and then two years old. Except I’m not marking the passage of life. I’m marking the passage of death. I have wrapped myself up in a blanket of grief for two years. Briefly opening my eyes for a day, before I close them once again, and return to my blanket of grief. Existing only in my memories.
I have come to the realization that I will always have this tremendous feeling of loss. It’s the price I pay for the gift of having Janet for my sister. A price I would pay over and over again in a heartbeat, if only to be able to experience such an amazing relationship once again.
I’m a different person today. I’m somehow more at peace with my thoughts and cherished memories. Our last words, spoken less than 24 hours before her death.
“I’m so happy, Alice! I love you.”
“I love you too! Be careful.”
Tumbling … Fading … As the years fold into each other.