RIP has always seemed to be such a grim saying to me. Perhaps it is the countless Halloween signs that display those creepy three letters splayed across a cold head stone or the way the moon light casts its blue shadows through the fingered branches of a tree, descending down over some pour lost soul. Or maybe it's because each time someone dear is lost, these three pesky letters scream out to me and might as well be saying: GONE, LOST, PAIN. Whatever it is, I don't like it.
But then again, I don't much like death.
It's been over a year since my last post. I had been meaning to catch up when I got the news of my sisters passing and since then I haven't been able to bring myself to blog. I couldn't write about what happened or what I was feeling, and yet I knew I couldn't not write about it either. Just skipping over it and continuing on with posts about seemingly unimportant things in comparison seemed wrong.
So here I am today, without a blog entry since that day, and hardy a solid journal entry on the subject. I regret this.
I endured some difficult times and felt an enormous amount of grief, but I was also blessed with comfort from my Heavenly Father and there were many times I felt Gods tender mercies in my life, causing me to grow and learn in ways I didn't know possible. These experiences have led me to where I am today. I wish I would have put that all down on paper just to remember it in those most raw of moments.
I find that while I'm not sure I'll find the proper words to express where I am, or where I've come from in this journey over the last year, I am finally ready say something about it. If I'm being honest, this post is for me. I understand that a writer (or blogger) must keep readers in mind (or potential readers, as in my case;). That's not what this post is for. It's just for me. It's not perfectly written or expressed, and it's incredibly long. But it's from my heart. I want to be able to look back and read over my thoughts and feelings on this day. I want to reminisce. So if you happened to stubble on this, and are reading, feel free to continue if you'd like, or skip along to another posting.
It took us over three months to learn what happened in the early hours of the 17th last year, and we were both heartbroken and relieved to finally learn the truth: Amber took her own life, more than a decade after her husband Jeff took his. Perhaps laying it out there like this is taboo. I'm sure there are some who wouldn't want those words out there, but I've never been one to shy away form the truth just because it’s uncomfortable. In fact, I feel little harm can be done in discussing such truths in comparison to the good it might do someone.
It's been a difficult year. Each day, for the last 365 days, has been the first one without her. The first Halloween without her, the first Thanksgiving, and Christmas. As these days passed by us, I was flooded memories of her in years passed, enjoying the festivities and food and laughter. I tried to imagine what she would do or say, had she been there with us.
It was the first time she missed my birthday, my mom's, and sibling’s birthdays. There was no call from her telling me she loved me or that she hoped my birthday was going well. It was the first time she missed her own birthday. I didn't get the call two weeks ahead of time telling me she'd save me the trouble of finding a gift for her and she'd just take the money.
My next visit back home was the first time she didn't tell me how beautiful my baby was, or how smart and amazing she thought she was. She always ooohed and awwed over everything Chloe did like it was remarkable. Chloe loved her.
Everything that happened this year, which was so much more than I know how to put down in words, she missed it. Maybe I should have known to expect this, but I didn't. This was hard for me. I miss her.
I often think of all the things I wish I had said to her, all the times I wish I had told her I loved her, I was sorry, forgave her, that I was proud of her, or that I'm glad I had her as a sister for 26 years. Sometimes I wish I could hug her. Many times a familiar smell will waft by, like the perfume she wore, or the smell of the Marlboro menthols she routinely "quit," and I'll turn almost expecting to see her standing there next to me. But she never is. It’s a strange feeling.
Once she was gone, something was missing. I'm not sure if there are words to match the feeling I'm trying to communicate. It's almost as though there is this live or active line that exists between me and each of my siblings, grounding us here to this earth together. When she died, it was like the line between her and I wasn't "live" anymore. I'm not sure if that makes much sense, it's soul deep feeling. It took losing this connection before I tuned into the fact that it existed Knowing I'll never get that active connection back in this life was hard for me to accept. So many experiences that once flowed through this line are now just memories.
My relationship with her was special. When I think of Amber, my memory lights up experiences we shared, and stories I've been told. We were ten years apart, and our Mom always said we shared a special connection. Amber would sit for hours and hold me as a baby, whispering to me, telling me how much she loved me. She told my mom all she wanted to be when she grew up was a "mommy". She often tenderly took care of me, and as I got older, she regularly spent time talking to me, getting to know me and imparting wisdom. Ever since I was a young girl we called each other "BBF's", or Best Buds Forever. Growing up I often felt her protection and desire for me to be happy.
When faced with the danger of an intruder in our home when I was three, my mother instructed her to take me and hide in a back bedroom. Amber managed to call 911, and locked us both in a bedroom. My mom was attacked, and being only a short distance away, we could hear it all happening. Amber recalled me crying and hitting the door, so she held me and quietly sang to me in hopes of keeping us safe. She did.
One night when I was 7, I woke up screaming from a nightmare and she came in to get me. She made a bed for me on the floor in her bedroom and told me that as long as the blanket was covering every inch of my body, I would be safe. Whatever was out there couldn't get me. She told me she knew this, because it's what she did. She was right—I slept safe and sound the rest of the night. I still do that sometimes when my husband is gone and the house is dark and the wind makes everything creek. I’ll climb in bed and make sure that not one toe is peeking out beneath the covers and it makes me think of her.
I remember finding her on a bench outside of our house when I was 8, and plopping down next to her. She was smoking, and I told her I thought she was “so cool”. She was 18. She told me that some of the things she did were not at all "cool", and made me promise to never smoke a cigarette or do any of the other "un-cool" things she did. I remember it surprised me and when I asked her more about it, she told me how awful addiction was. She compared it to something someone my age could better relate to: being stranded in a dessert and desperately needing water. That overwhelming thirst and need was what she said it felt like. I never forgot that. It sounded awful to me. Eager to please the sister I looked up to, I agreed I'd never try anything that would make me feel that way. Her words have played out in my mind on more than one occasion when I've been faced with a choice to drink, smoke or try drugs--I've always kept my promise to her.
She wasn't always at home though, sometimes she lived in the next town over, and she'd come home to visit or I'd go to visit her. It was always a reprieve for me. I had someone to talk to, someone who would listen to me and treat me like I wasn't just a child, but an interesting person. I'm not sure she understood what these times meant to me. I'm not sure I ever told her. My mother was left to raise 9 children on her own when I was 3, and with such an overwhelming task she needed all the help she could get with me. Amber was often there.
When Amber married Jeff, a blind man who I adored, I went over to their apartment to visit them regularly. Jeff had a soft spot for me, and his mother said he talked often about how much he loved me. I have a feeling Amber played a big part in the way Jeff thought of me. One night Amber made me dinner, which involved a nice heaping pile of cottage cheese. At nine, I was repulsed by the stuff. When I resisted, she told me I better be finished with my dinner before she got out of the shower. She didn't mess around because a whole five minutes later she shut the water off and I panicked as I looked at my untouched pile of curds. Jeff, hearing me whine and panic, told me he'd eat it for me if I promised not to tell. I thanked him and waited. He laughed and when he opened his mouth it dawned on me that he expected me to shovel it in. Of course he was right, he couldn't see my curdled cheese and if we were going to pull it off I'd have to comply. His laughter and encouragement easily melted away any hesitation I had. While I was decent at feeding myself, that didn't translate to feeding someone else very well. After stabbing him in the face a few times with the fork, and making a mess down the front of him, he did manage to get most of it down between the fits of laughter we shared. Amber came out to inspect my progress and looked us both over. He kept a straight face, though I'm not sure how because even he had to feel her examination of us, but she must have found satisfaction in what she saw, because she smiled and commended me for doing a good job as she carried my plate off to the sink.
She found the truth out ten years later, when I told her. We had a good laugh about it.
She frequently watched after me. Sometimes that was in the form of opening up and talking about her mistakes and struggles, hoping to deter me from falling into some of the same traps she found herself in.
She had attempted suicide before, more than once. We talked about this, because it was always traumatizing for us. I knew she struggled with terrible depression, among other things, and that she was in a lot of pain. One day she made me promise that if I was ever feeling overwhelmed or desperate enough to harm myself, that I would call her instead. She insisted that it didn't matter what time of day, she would be there. Though it was much worse for her, we both struggled with depression, and she wanted me to avoid the pain and mistakes she had to live with. We had this discussion a lot, so I knew it was often on her mind. I tried to make her promise the same, though I wasn't comforted or certain that she would.
When I was 15 She made me promise to never cut myself. She was adamant, and told me it wasn't something to mess around with no matter how inward pain I might be feeling. She explained that once you start something like that, you always turn to that when the pain gets bad. I knew she had scars she didn't want me to have. She told me to keep a rubber band on my wrist to snap if I needed to, or go outside a run until it hurt. Anything but cutting.
Turns out I'm a decent runner. (:
While some of my memories are of moments that altered the way I viewed something and therefore influenced the way I chose to live my life, there are so many that are pure fun.
When I was in Elementary school, I looked forward to bringing home my report cards. She rewarded any A's with a trip to Baskin Robins for a scoop of mint chocolate chip ice cream. I still tried to convince her to do this for me up until I graduated. I even offered to pay.
When I was in high school, she moved back home. On night I accidently mixed some natural remedy for a cold, with my Ambien and inadvertently got high. Like, stuck-under-my-bed-and-couldn't-figure-out-why-I-couldn't-stand-up-high. I fully realized what I had done when later that week, she caught my cold and mixed the same natural remedy with her Ambien. It was a hilarious night. We laughed about it for a long time.
She loved Melissa Ethridge and would sometimes pop in the CD's I bought her, and would sing along at the top of her lungs despite the fact that she couldn't sing. But she did it anyways and it always made me laugh. We'd dance around the house to Neil Diamond blaring, or Janice Joplin, as we swept, mopped, or organized our bookshelves till it satisfied our OCD.
She wore heinous tapered pants for years when it wasn't in style, and I condemned her for it. She thought it was so cool and told me so. I never believed her. Not even for a second.
At times she sported a mullet, for reasons beyond my explanation. I think she liked how much we hated it.
My mom nick named the tiger tattoo that sprawled down her calf "tigger the tuh-too" and she hated it. Really, hated it. Every time we called him that, she'd leave the room angry. Her tattoo was supposed to be mean and tough. My mom and I found this sport pretty funny. Then one day, she started calling him tuh-too as well. It was a bonding moment.
She watched my daughter eat her first food: a strawberry. Chloe loved Amber. But kids always did. I think they saw that she was just a big kid herself. I had flown home for a visit, and that entire trip she talked about how wonderful and smart Chloe was. She snuggled with her any chance she got, and had a fit over everything she did.
My best friend saw a picture of her once, and told me she thought my “brother” was cute. When Amber heard about it, she was pretty flattered. Ha! We never let my friend live it down, which was fine by her. She loved Amber, too.
Amber was terrified of ducks, grasshoppers, and moths. When she went outside for a "smoke" break in the winter time, she'd try to convince me to come along so I could guard her from the moths. Mostly I said, "no". I didn't like them either. She hated anything with wings except for a stuffed duck we named “Baby Huey”. Although, she said she like him, she kept him on the top of her bookshelf in the far corner of her room.
She loved to play a game where she made us close our eyes and guess what food she was putting in our mouth. Only most of the time, it wasn't editable. Or it was, but shouldn't have been. This never got old for her and since I was the youngest, I was her go-to person for this trick when all the others stopped cooperating. This was especially fun for her with her husband Jeff, since he couldn't see anyways. She tried to sprinkle in treats here and there, so we'd be willing to keep trying. It took me longer than it should have to refuse to "play" along (not sure why) but she took advantage of that every chance she got.
She also had a knack for standing in the nooks and around corners and jumping out to scare us. She usually succeeded.
She always cut up her French toast into tiny pieces, and dipped them into her syrup, which she kept in a nearby cup.
She always poured her milk before her cereal. Since we often ate breakfast together, I learned to make my bowl of cereal this way too. I still poor my milk first.
The last time I heard her voice was on my birthday 2 weeks before she died. She told me she loved me.
The last text I received was about the weather in Atlanta Georgia where she was staying on the 8th of October. Her last three words were "i love u". My last words to her via text were, “love you too! Enjoy your sun:)”
I wish more than anything she could still be here with us, but I can't change that she's gone. Sometimes, in order to heal, I know we must seek out the good that comes from our trails. This year has been filled a variety of experiences: pain, guilt, understanding, perspective, love, and forgiveness, to name a few. It has changed me.
Through all of this I have felt that as long as I let God help me, He would use this difficult trial to shape me, and leave me better than I was before. I have felt the transformation in this last year, and none of it would have been possible with out the love of my Heavenly Father. I will always cherish all the memories I have of her. I will remember the times she lifted me up and how she made me better; the times she challenged and pushed me, forcing me to grow. I’ll remember her smile, her terrible style, and the way she used to clap when she laughed at something truly funny.
I guess my point is she can not be forgotten. My childhood memories, up until I graduated high school are weaved together with my experiences with her. She was always there, seeming to make up a great deal of my life shaping experiences. I hope she knows how grateful I am for her, how much I love her, miss her, forgive her, and how sorry I am for the times I wasn't the sister I could have been to her.
What Amber wanted more than anything else was to go to the temple. She wanted to be sealed to her husband for time and all eternity. She worked hard towards that in the years before she died, but never quite made it.
Today, my family went through the temple for her. They sealed her to her to Jeff, who died in 1997. October 17th will no longer just be a reminder of the day she died, it will be the day that we were able to give her the one gift she wanted so badly while she was here.
Amber, I love you. Pass along my love to Jeff. I miss you both, terribly. And though I really do hate those three little letters, I do hope you are resting peacefully and happily with your husband by your side.
Until we meet again...
Sealed for time and all eternity on October 17th 2012.
