Letter—What Eye See

Dear Jen,

I have been feeling melancholy lately.  The weather is gorgeous, bright and sunny and breezy and spring is wonderful.  On the outside all is well but inside something is brewing.  I like to keep my sunglasses on so no one can see how blank my eyes look.

Speaking of my eyes.  A few weeks ago I stared noticing that my right eye was being crazy.  I literally thought I was going insane.  Everywhere I looked I saw what looked like a reflection of the ceiling fan–kind of like a sun spot after you stare into the sun.  It was making me twitchy.  I finally went to the eye doctor who said I’ve got some thing that is probably no big deal but she wants me to get a MRI so she can see behind the eye, just to be sure.  You know, to make sure there’s not a tumor back there or I didn’t have some kind of mini stroke or something that would be causing my optic nerve to be all wonky like this and disrupt my vision.

On the whole I am not that concerned.  I think it’s probably nothing and I am not one to get all worked up over things in advance.

But last night I was doing the dishes and thinking about what if it is something.  Something really bad.  Like, what if I die.

I was momentarily immobilized, my chest so tight I could barely breathe.  Thinking about leaving this world, leaving my babies…my sweet little babies.  They are my everything.  Especially my little Monkey who would be too young to remember me.  And my Sunshine who would be old enough to remember me and miss me.  My little Daydream, right in the middle, old enough to remember but would he remember enough?

I often wish to see you again.  I think about what I would do for that.  If I had to step forward and leave this all behind…I know my answer Jen.  I would step back.  I can’t leave.  Not yet.

You did have to leave all of this behind.  Now your baby is ten years old and has a step-mom and refers to them as her parents.  My Sunshine asked her during a recent phone conversation where her mom was–YOU–and she said She’s in Heaven.  Just like that.  You are gone.

I love you and miss you and would do just about anything to see you again.  I will have to wait because I cannot give this up.  I love them too damn much to walk away from them.

Not really comforting but good to know where I stand on all of this.

You are always with me.  I love you and miss you each and every day, always and forever.

Love, me.

Letter–Reading You

Dear Jen,

Today I did a thing, something I don’t ever do because it hurts too damn bad.  I went into the folder of my email with your name on it and read every single one.

There aren’t more and I think there should be.  I wonder to myself why.  I am a serial deleter, though.  Wish I’d saved more.

I read them for a long time while my little Monkey slept in my lap.  My heart was beating so fast and I was filled with so much sadness.

There are so many days when I wish I could turn to you; every single day I have the thought of needing to talk to you.  You are always the first person I think about reaching toward and my mind goes blank when I realize you are gone.  Who else do I reach for?  I turn back to myself.  There are so many things I want to share with you and you are gone.  Sharing them with others doesn’t feel the same.  Sometimes I feel like I’m on the edge of a black hole.  It is just me, no one else, empty and alone.  My thoughts are my own, they stay with me; without you, they remain a whisper on my lips.

I wonder if you are watching me.  When you are watching me.  Do you see my good moments?  Are you with me in my bad ones?  I want to be strong for you and show you that I can try and do this, that I can live without you, that my front is strong enough for everyone to see, my pain and sadness far enough away from the surface that they can’t.  If I let it up, I will surely crack.  This year will be six years, six tiny ripples in the rest of my life.  I have never missed anyone so much before, never wanted anything so badly as to have you back, here with me.  I haven’t wondered WHY lately but right at this moment, I do.  WHY.  Why you, my sweet, beautiful sister, keeper of my memories.

I read the emails and could hear your voice.

I love you and miss you each and every day, always and forever.

Love, me.

Thought

I should rename this blog “Letters to My Dead Sister” because that is what it has turned into.  I’m okay with that.

 

Letter–1/1/13

Dear Jen,

Ugggg.  I have such a heavy heart.  I wish I could talk to you so badly right now.

Today my Daydream wanted to wear a particular pair of socks but I told him that I could only find one.  No problem, he chose another pair.  In my mind I remembered how I had put various socks in the wash a month or so ago and about 4 of them did not come out.  4 pairs of socks missing a mate!  Craziness.  Our machine has eaten socks before and only been found when the repair man took apart the machine to fix it and found them inside.  So I knew that was where they were but figured we would probably never see them again.  Then, as I was taking out a load of the kids’ laundry tonight and sorting it between baskets, what did I find?  All 4 missing socks!

I can’t believe that is just a coincidence.  Instead, I choose to believe it was you.  Why you would choose to fish my children’s missing socks out of the depths of our machine is beyond me but I’m glad you did, so thank you.  I don’t think I believe in coincidences all the time anymore.  Maybe sometimes, but some crazy shit has happened that makes me think it something else.

How would the medium have know the thought that went through my head right before I walked out the door to go see him?  I didn’t say a word about it to anyone.  Yet he repeated it to me almost verbatim.  He said you were there with me in that moment and I believe him.  I choose to believe because it makes sense to me and it makes me feel less alone.

Please take my prayers to you and use them well.

I love you and miss you each and every day, always and forever.

Love, me.

Letter—New Years 2012

Dear Jen,

Tonight is December 31, 2012.  Another year without you is coming to a close.

I am sitting at the kitchen table, coloring pictures for the kids with their markers and thinking of you.  God I miss you.  Some days it gets easier and some days, not so much.  Today is one of those not so much days.

I don’t have a whole lot to say.  I just want you to know that I am thinking of you and that I miss you so very much.

All my love, always and forever.

Love, me.

Letter–My Thoughts Lately

Dear Jen,

This is hard Jen and I don’t know where to start.  It has been a rough week for me, emotionally, ever since 20 little kids and multiple adults—teachers, caregivers—were murdered at their school.  I have cried so much for these poor souls and their families.  My heart breaks each time I think about what happened in those rooms and when I picture parents waiting for their child who did not make it…I just…words fail me.  The tears fall quickly.

There is one little boy I feel a special kinship with, Noah Pozner.  As I read an article talking about all the victims, I realized that he shares your birthday.  It might not mean anything.  Or maybe it means everything.  I don’t know.

I really haven’t spoken much about my visit to the medium almost one year ago.  What happened there was so incredible it still takes my breath away.  We sat in a small conference room, over 100 people, all wondering if he would bring our loved ones through.  I honestly didn’t think you would come.  I felt that if you did, I would be so happy, but if not, that was okay too.  I was just really curious about the whole thing and found what he had to say amazing and soothing.

Then he began to speak with the dead and you were the first one.  I wonder so much about that.  All these years, have you been waiting for your chance?  Did you know how much I needed to hear from you?  I had—and still have—so many questions but I feel so much more at peace now.  He said so many amazing and incredible things, I have no doubt that you were in that room with us.  No doubt at all.

One thing he said that has stuck with me was that your role over there—wherever “there” is, is one of a caretaker, caregiver, guide to motherless children.  Children who have passed but their parents are still alive.  You are there with them, for them.  It fits you perfectly.  When I heard about the massacre at that school last Friday, my first thought—after total shock, sadness, horror—was of you and those children.  I hope you are there for them.  Especially little Noah Pozner.  I feel very strongly that you are but I don’t know for sure.  I can only hope and pray to you that you look after and care for these babies.

I read a post in which the author said that no matter how old you are, when you lose a child, the parent must see that child as their baby, not only as their teen/adult/whatever age child who has died.  That really made me think.  Mom and Dad don’t only mourn the loss of their daughter, they mourn the loss of their baby.  You are their baby and you always will be.  I’m always telling Sunshine and Daydream that they are no longer babies, but that they will always be MY babies.  Forever and ever, as long as I live, I will be able to picture them as tiny babies on my chest, feel their tiny puffs of air on my cheek as I rock them, hear their tiny newborn cries.  My little Monkey is 5 months old and I look into his sparkling brown eyes and I see you.  I’m starting to ramble but it’s all coming out too fast.  My heart is bleeding.  I’m trying to keep it together and the past few days have been really hard.  I’ve been crying in private, quickly wiping my eyes before one of the kids notices.  I don’t want them to know this pain yet.

You make me proud, Jen.  I hope you are proud of me.

I love you and miss you every day, always and forever.

Love, me.

Letter–Holidays Editon

Dear Jen,

December is here and this year is rapidly spinning to a close.  It’s holiday time and you are on my mind every day.

I’ve started holiday baking and can I just say that it has become a real pain in the ass.  Back when we did it together it was fun but now I am totally over it.  People come to expect it, though, so I feel stuck.  I think of you as I’m stirring, mixing, rotating sheet trays in the oven.  Your recipes are behind plastic and I wish they were in your handwriting instead of typed.  Oh well.  They came from you and that is what matters.

I have to say something that has been on my mind for a while.  It started last year when I was pregnant and I started smelling cigarette smoke.  At the time I thought it was my neighbor Dan, an elderly man who would stand out on his back porch and smoke.  Then we moved and it went a way for a while and I forgot about it.  Now, though, it is back and I cannot figure it out.  What the hell?  I started to wonder if it is a spirit but the only person I can think of who I know that is dead and smoked was Grandma.  I can remember Mom telling me how she was in the hospital and trying to get a smoke from the nurse.  I was only 4 when she died and I don’t really remember her that well.  I only have a few vague memories of her but I know she loved me and I loved her too.  So…you can’t answer this run-on thought but I just wanted to put it out there.  Because I smell it a lot, in whiffs, and it is really puzzling me.  Like right now.  The windows are closed and to my knowledge, no one who lives around us smokes.  I just don’t get it.

I miss you.

Love, me.

Letter–November

Dear Jen,

November is coming to a close.

Your birthday was Tuesday.  You would have turned 41 this year.  Every year I make cupcakes to celebrate your birthday and I sing to you with the kids and we eat frosting and I talk about you.  This year we had lollipops instead because I’m trying to cut down on the amount of sweets we eat.  We still sang to you and talked about you.  My Daydream kept jumping around all that morning, asking about going to Aunt Jen’s party.  Kids.  They love to celebrate.

Thanksgiving was Thursday.  Ugh, Jen, it was always YOUR holiday.  We gathered at your house and there was tons of food and we’d watch movies and I loved it so much.  Now that you are gone it always feels a little empty to me.  I have moved into your spot and now WE host Thanksgiving.  Mom and Dad and Uncle Joel came, plus me, Kyle and the kids.  It was a very nice dinner and the day went smoothly.  I baked my sweet potato casserole and the desserts the day before.  I found your recipe for sweet potato casserole but I didn’t use it.  I’m glad I have it though.  That dish, to me, is Thanksgiving.  It is so sweet with the marshmallows, all brown and melty.  It makes me think of you.

I remember the first year you were sick and we spent one of those Tuesdays in the hospital planning the Thanksgiving menu while you were hooked up to your chemo drip.

Every other Tuesday at the hospital.  You and me.  Eventually I started bringing a camping chair with a built in footrest because the chair at the hospital was so uncomfortable.  The nurses and other regular patients smiled and laughed.  We were so young Jen.  I am only 1 year away from your age when you died and I feel so fucking old sometimes.  I can’t look at myself in the mirror because I’m afraid of what I see.

These five years since you died, and the three before where you fought to live, changed me, hardened me into someone I don’t recognize sometimes.  The pain isn’t so raw anymore and I don’t spend hours on the couch wishing a black hole would swallow me.  But I still miss the shit out of you and I dream of being with you again.  I long for it so much and that is what hurts now.  My longing to see you.

Sometimes out of nowhere I think of you.  I’m just doing something, blah blah blah and all of the sudden you are on my mind.  I’m thinking of a specific memory or just about you in general.  I wonder so much about those moments.  Is it my brain?  Or is it you?  Are you standing beside me, willing me to think about you?  Are you touching me?  Would I feel it if you were?

When I can’t sleep at night I think about you.  I pick a special memory and visualize it, remembering every little detail, memorizing your shape and the feel of you hands.

I remember holding your hand the night you died.  It was smooth and soft, turning cool when I finally put it down.  I had to walk away.

Jen.  I can do this.  I have to do this.  But I don’t want to.  I am forever yours, your loving sister, the baby of the family, except now it’s just me and I’m all alone.  I’ll be waiting patiently for you.  Please wait for me.

I love you with all my heart, always and forever.

Love, me.

Letter–A 3 Month Old Little Monkey

Dear Jen,

Today my little Monkey is 3 months.  He is so cute!  I know you would be fawning all over him.  He has recently started smiling and cooing and in the last few days, actually laughing.  A real laugh!  I want to devour him because he is so sweet and so special, my last little baby.  There is something in his eyes, Jen.  Some kind of glimmer that I’m not totally sure of but I like it.

He is a big boy, already fitting into 6 month jammies.  It is a total shock for me since my other two were either right on size or under size.  Everyone says that he looks so much like me and Sunshine.  Daydream is going to be the odd man out, looking  just like his Daddy (and acting like him too, that boy is making me crazy with his antics!)  I keep saying I am going to have gray hair soon and maybe I will.  I want to wear it gracefully and definitely won’t dye it at all.

These last 3 months have been hard for me.  I have not been adjusting gracefully to three kids and some days have been really ugly.  Things do seem to be getting better, though, and I am sure that the upswing will only continue.  I want to see you and feel you everywhere.  I wonder if I sometimes imagine it because I want it so much?  When I randomly think of you, is it totally random or is it because you are next to me?  I wish I knew.

Sunshine asks about you a lot and we talk about how you got sick and died, that the doctors just couldn’t make you better but that you are still with us in our hearts and with our love for you.  She asks where you are and I tell her that I don’t honestly know but that I think your soul, your spirit is still here with us.  I say that I hope and believe I will see you again when I die.  She says she doesn’t want to die, she wants us all to live forever and I tell her that I wish that too but unfortunately, it can’t happen that way.  One day I will die and one day she will die too.  She says she’ll be sad to die and sad when I die and I agree with her.  These are heavy conversations to have with a 4 year old, I think, but my voice is clear and strong.  Sometimes she starts to talk about death and dying and I have to ask her to stop because I don’t want to dwell on death, I want to focus on our life and what we have to live for today.  Our life is grand and beautiful, I say, let’s celebrate it and enjoy what we have.  I don’t want her to be burdened with death.  She is too young for that, right?

 
You are always in my thoughts, my love for you is everlasting.  I miss you like crazy, each and every day.

Love, me.

Letter–Through My Prayers

Dear Jen,

I’m struggling lately.  I can’t seem to get my footing right and I’ve ended up in tears more than once, many days in a row.  Yesterday I stared at the moon while walking home from the store.  I stood in the middle of the sidewalk and just stared and stared.  It is so far away.  So are you.  I could really use your support right now.  I think you can see me but it would be nice to be able to really talk to you, to confide in you.

One of my favorite artists released a new album last week and I have been listening to it constantly.  One of the songs, “Through My Prayers,” brings me to tears.  I have never listened to a song before that has made me cry, truly cry, by its beauty.  The words and the melody and their voices hit my heart just right.

My dream of all dreams and my hope of all hopes

Is only to tell you and make sure you know

How much I love you and how much I always did

And yes, I know you loved me, I can see it in your eyes

And it was in your struggle and it was in your mind

And it was in the smile you gave me when I was a kid

Feels like no one understands

And now my only chance

To talk to you is through my prayers

I only wanted to tell you, I care…

That pretty much sums it up.

I love you and miss you each and every day, always and forever.

Love, me.

(Words are from the song “Through My Prayers,” off the new Avett Brothers album The Carpenter)