A Hostage in the Mouth of Myth

"It came to this, then, sister? You deceived me?

The pyre meant this, altars and fires meant this?

What shall I mourn first, being abandoned? Did you

Scorn your sister's company in death?

You should have called me out to the same fate!

The same blade's edge and hurt, at the same hour,

Should have taken us off."

-Anna to Dido

Book IV of Virgil's The Aeneid

You'll believe in something else to relieve your emptiness

Why am I so depressed?

Your head will collapse if there's nothing in it & you'll ask yourself, "Where is My Mind?"

"These images, and many more, haunt me now, pecking away at my protective shell of denial until I stand defenseless in their wake. I now understand the meaning of the expression grief stricken; it accurately captures the punch-in-the-stomach reality I'm experiencing.

The grief is bigger than me now; it lingers around every corner, like a bully, waiting to pounce. I feel trapped, confused, and afraid. I keep expecting someone to come to the rescue, to drop from the sky in a red cape and scare off the bully, but no one seems to notice my trembling.

So I run. Instinct leads me to seek refuge in a safe place where I can begin to make sense of my loss. . .

The solitude brings relief; it becomes my shield, my healing remedy against the noise and the mindless chatter of the day that pierce my soul like a thousand tiny needles. . .

I climb into the car and sit for a moment in the darkness. I have an uneasy feeling, almost as if I've forgotten something. 'What is it?' I ask myself. 'What is it?'

And then, all at once, a memory flashes. . .

I hear [her] voice, clear and strong, always with a note of reassurance. I can feel what it's like to be with [her] -- that same easy, familiar presence I've known all my life.

And then, in an instant, it's gone. The memory vanishes as quickly as it came, slipping beneath the dark waters with the late afternoon sun.

I sit very still for several minutes, a flutter of grief rising in my chest. 'How can life go on without you?' I whisper as I start the engine and head for home.

. . . The shock and disbelief have given way to a sort of pining, a longing to see my [sister] just one more time. I find myself making a special effort to remember the little things. . .

Reorientation -- the period in which we begin to learn how to adjust to life without our brother or sister.

But how can I learn to live in a world that doesn't include my [sister]? All my life, I've always been my [sister's] sister; it's part of my identity, part of who I am. My [sister] is part of my past; we share a common history. And we had plans for the future. I must, therefore, shift my perspective and change many goals in order to assimilate [her] loss into my life. Needless to say, this is an emotionally painful process because it feels as if I'm weeding [her] out of my life, which only compounds my grief.

Reorientation is also taking place within my family of origin. Established roles begin to shift, and no one quite knows their place anymore. We try on our new roles, but they don't quite fit; we shuck them off uncomfortably, like old coats. . . [My sister's] many roles lie in a heap on the floor alongside a mound of unfulfilled dreams. . ."

Succotash My Balzak, Dipshiitake

"[Kelsey] and I kept each other awake very late. We laughed. Young sisters in a bed under the roof of their childhood home. Wind on the window.

How could anything less deserve to be destroyed?

I thought we would be awake all night. Awake the rest of our lives.

The space between our worlds grew.

It became difficult to tell when we were talking and when we were silent.

The hairs of our arms touched.

It was late, and we were tired.

We assumed there would be other nights.

[Kelsey]'s breathing started to slow, but I still wanted to talk.

She rolled onto her side.

I said, I want to tell you something.

She said, You can tell me tomorrow.

I had never told her how much I loved her.

She was my sister.

We slept in the same bed.

There was never a right time to say it.

It was always unnecessary.

The books in my father's shed were sighing.

The sheets were rising and falling around me with [Kelsey]'s breathing.

I thought about waking her.

But it was unnecessary.

There would be other nights.

And how can you say I love you to someone you love?

I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.

Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you . . .

It's always necessary.

I love you . . ."

don't close your eyes; you might fall to pieces.

Today I'm wearing the same dress I wore on June 25th, 2009.

I've only worn it once in between, and it was for the AFED art auction.

Of course, I'm 10 pounds bigger than the first time I wore it, so I think I fill it out more now.

For some reason, yesterday and today have been a lot harder than Sunday was.

"Daddy, our baby's gone."

'You're allowed to be sad, but you aren't allowed to be too sad.

If you're always sad when you think about me, then how can you remember me?'

If I can make it here, I can make it anywhere

In New York City, mother and I went to the Tick Tock Diner for dinner Saturday May 29th, the day after what would have been Kelsey's 24th birthday. I promised her prior to the trip that I'd tell her what had been on my mind..

I left on dad's birthday and stayed at Jacob's because the parents were fighting, and since they've always been great parents when it comes to keeping their disagreements/arguments/fights behind closed doors and never in front of their children (they're definitely great parents in more ways than this, but this is the aspect that matters to this situation), I didn't know what was going on; I only felt the unexplainably heavy blanket of tension that lay over the household. The following morning, I apologized to mom for leaving & told her that I just couldn't bear the tension on top of so much other stuff being on my mind at the time.

And thus I told her all that had been on my mind that night, May 29th, at the diner.

I told her how I'd spent weeks fixating on all of the guilt I felt and subsequent blame I placed on myself for Kelsey's death. I explained in further detail, which I will not do now, and went on to explain how this constant beating my mind and conscious was giving me for almost a month had completely worn me down, how my skin was so thin, and that the night of dad's birthday consequently made me scared.. I knew and know my parents will never split. They love each other. Couples fight. People fight. It's human, it's natural, it's healthy. But it's so rare to sense anger and pain that intense between my parents that my mind immediately began to wonder what would happen if they did? What the hell would I do? I'd be completely & utterly alone. Those two, my mother & my father: they ARE my only family now, and with those thoughts on top of the Kelsey-killer thoughts, I broke. I told mother all of this and more. We talked. It was a sad, down kind of evening... Saturday night in NYC, eating dinner at a little diner then going back to our hotel to watch TV and sleep.

When we left, we walked down the street some ways, and near one of the block corners was a man with a handful of flyers waiting for passerby's such as ourselves. He readied himself as we approached. "Hey!" as he starts to hold out a flyer, "Comedy show - Aw, why you ladies look so sad? C'mon," beginning his attempt to hand us a flyer, "you could bring your sister..."

I must've changed from a sad look to one of fury as I firmly walked past the man to the street corner, waiting for mother and to cross.

"Oh, she is NOT happy I said that!"

Mother politely smiled, although my back was to the both of them now I could hear the smile in her tone, told the man calmly, "No, she is not. Her sister.. passed away last year."

Again, I couldn't see his face but I could hear the bugged eyes and dropped jaw of that horrible oh-shit moment everyone has at some point as he said less enthusiastically, "Oh.. my god. I am SO sorry."

I clenched my teeth as my eyes welled, blood boiled, and the urge to turn and beat the innocent man's face into his skull pulsed.

In her polite voice, "yeah, we're actually here because it was.. would have been her birthday yesterday. So.."

Desperately trying to recover the fumble that lost him the game, "I - I'm so, so sorry. Look, you ladies have a good night and a nice stay. Again, I am truly, so sorry."

I think mom said thank you a time or two, but if so that's not what I was listening to. As we walked on and I had sucked back those welling tears and barely loosened my jaw, mother asked if I was okay. "Yep. Just fine." Typical me.

I wrote down this exchange in my journal as soon as we got back to the hotel. I still haven't written in my journal since.. I think it's because of something else I said to mother that night.. how I don't deal with things. I haven't been avidly writing because that requires me to face everything going on in the present, definitely the past, and sometimes the future. If I don't write, I can remain ignorant.

But anyway..

I have to leave now. Psychiatrist appointment (how appropriate) then going to Jacob's grandparents for a short visit.