Hello there, little sister. Little, dear sister.
I know that in fact you're my older sister and I'm the youngest of the bunch, but I'll always remember you as little. I know that you are dead and can't hear these words, and that if you were alive today you wouldn't understand them. But what if, what if things had played out a bit differently, little girl? What if you had been born healthy? We might be playing through the LEGO video games right now together. We might have spent each moment together as we grew up. Things, for the both of us, for the rest of the family, might all have been easier.
Little sister, I miss you sometimes, even though I never knew you, even though I barely remember you. I keep wondering what might have happened if you hadn't been ill, if you hadn't died. Would I even be alive? Would our parents have called it quits once you were born and never given me the chance to live? Once I was told that the reason I exist is because the doctors adviced our parents to get another child while they could. I was told that if it weren't for you, love, I wouldn't be here today. Sometimes those words ring true in my mind. Other times it feels useless to dwell on the past.
I'm sorry I didn't come to see you on All Hallow's Eve. I would have liked to come over and light a candle to chase away some of the storm. I would have liked to drop off some flowers like I did on Midsummer's Eve. I would have liked to pay you my respects, because in all essence, the roles could be reversed. I could have been the one born a year before you, I could have been the one to carry all your pain and burdens. You could have been the one to live my life, and maybe you would have done better with it than I have.
You see, I feel a lot like a failure even when the wind's blowing my way. Even when there's no sorrows to bother with or when my problems are so, so small compared to the world and the great scope of things, I can feel so low, so under-achieving, so hopeless. Like I can't fight the demands I set up for my own demise. Like it wasn't voluntary of me to caress the busy moments, so I wouldn't have so much time to think.
But sister, I would like to take some time to think every once in a while. Take a breather from all the stressed out routines. And maybe then I might light a candle, here in my own home, and take a moment to think of you, or to talk to you.
How come it works so well, talking to someone who's dead? Is it because there are no replies? Is it because what I really want to do is just to spill my heart out, in any way, to let the words flow through my fingers when I'm too sore to speak?
If you had been born free, free and healthy, I'm just certain that everything would have been different. I'm certain you and I would have so much in common. With just one year, one tiny little year, to set us apart, we could have become eachother's comfort, eachother's heals. Maybe in some other dimension, some alternate reality where this option really did play out, we're comforting eachother as I speak. Maybe we know nothing of hardship or death there. Maybe we know all too well, but can find comfort in our loneliest moments. We can stand against this whole world together, in that reality.
If everything had just played out differently.
I won't take more of your time now. I'm sure there are greater, grander things in play where you are right now, than my small and insignificant problems here. In many ways, sister, you won this game. This world has gone insane. So full to the brim with evil that you would be too innocent to understand. It would just harm you. Leave it to me to fight these images in this age of information. I promise I will fight for you, and I'm sure your memory will give me strength to pull through. We never give up, little sister. In this family we never give up.
I love you. Even the faintest memory of you. It reminds me how brittle everything is. How quickly it all can just go away. And it reminds me that even when the odds seem impossible, we can keep fighting. Keep fighting until the last drop of blood, even when everyone believes the war has already been lost.
Until next time, little Carolina.
POET IN THE JAR
I can't express with words what this text made me feel.
ReplyDeleteI think you've mentioned her once, when we were talking about my name... it does feel a little odd to know that I have the same name as her, perhaps a slightly differently spelled but the same nevertheless.
stay strong. both of us must. we never give up in my family, either. we might complain a lot, but we never stop going forward.
I'm sure thinks will work out. they will.
Don't worry. I don't think of the names other than it being an interesting coincidence.^^
ReplyDeleteI hope they will work out, yes. I'm not ready to give up just yet even though things just seem grim.
You're right. I don't speak of her very often, because there hasn't been a reason for me to. What would I say, you know? Hi, I used to have a sister once but she died? It's been one of those things that I haven't talked about to many people at all, and one of those things that I, up until now, have wanted to keep private. I don't want people to start being sympathetic to me or analyze how I've become simply because this is how my past looks. But I want to break this long-term silence now. I feel an urge to talk about these things even if I only speak to a blog. I'm done shoving these memories down the trash chute. I need to lift them, need to vent them, and so I will. I'm sure if she'd ever been able to understand such a reasoning, she'd side with me. And I hope she might feel proud of me that finally this is getting out of the darkness where it's been dwelling now for far too long.
I'm glad I could reach out to you with this text, even though it came straight from the heart and I put no effort into phrasing it perfectly. I just wrote it. Thanks for being so supportive as always. <3
it is an interesting coincidence, but very odd too. I don't believe in anything supernatural or anything, it's just odd in a way.
DeleteAnd I totally understand. Things like that can give you this certain aura, people gossip your private matters and then when they see you, they're like "oh that's the girl whose dad died when she was 15" or "that's the one who has a sick mother" or whatever. And it's not nice. I don't like people knowing about my sick mother either, it's not a secret but it's not something I talk about that much. So I understand. And there're not a lot of chances to bring something like that up. "Hey btw, did I ever tell you about my dead sister?"
It's a very, very good thing that you're letting those things out. I'm convinced it will make you feel better in the long run!
And no problem ^^