(Written a few years ago on July 8.)
My sister died on July 8 when I was a child. She was two years younger than me and we spent every waking hour together. Our family was our world. My universe consisted of four people: Mom, Dad, Becky Ann and myself. I was young – four-years old at the time of her death – but old enough to know something significant had taken place in our family.
Becky Ann and me
I remember her. I remember specific trivial events like listening to songs on our record player (“Yesterday” by the Beatles), playing in the upstairs attic (dusty, hot, wood smell, one small window and a closet), walking up the sidewalk with mom to the library (where they had a Reading Club and would cut out construction paper and put your name on the wall if you read enough books) and sitting on the couch together watching “The Monkey’s” on television (“Hey, hey we’re the Monkey’s, and people say we monkey around, but we’re too busy singin’ to put anybody down”). I remember when she got sick, and how everyone prayed she would get better.
I remember the hospital corridor outside her room in Montreal, the smell of the hallway and the noises the metal heating radiator made when I smacked toys against it. I remember my grandpa letting me blow out his cigarette lighter for my birthday while we were in the car making the long trip to see her in the hospital. I remember my mom and dad being gone – and when they weren’t gone, they were sad. I remember sitting under the dining room table at my grandma’s house in Ohio (while mom, dad and Becky Ann were in Canada) listening to my record player for what seemed like months but was really just weeks.
I remember distinctly the July day she died. I remember a bunch of people I didn’t know coming to (my grandmother) Nan’s house. I remember seeing all of my relatives crying and I remember not really knowing what was happening, but wanting to desperately.
Dad had a dream about her in heaven just after she died. Someone, well-meaning I’m sure, told me God wanted her in heaven with him – and I didn’t like Him for taking her there for years, maybe until recently. I asked myself what I was doing at the age of four that made God not want me there with him. Whenever I loved someone, I immediately assumed they were going to die. I was terrified that people – myself included – would disappear because I already knew it could happen. I saw it happen. It happens.
I’ve known people in my life who lost brothers or sisters at an early age. I always look at them carefully. Do they act like me? Is their outlook dark like mine? Do they hold on tightly and never take anything for granted? Do they think everyone is going to die, right now? For the most part, unfortunately, I think they do.
When you are in the market for a used car or a house, you look at all of the things it has been through. Was it wrecked or did it survive a flood? Was there a fire, an earthquake, did they have the oil changed regularly or did they regularly have it inspected and serviced? All of these things – some of them mundane, some of them dramatic – shape what it is and what it will become. Sometimes events ruin things and sometimes they make them better and stronger. Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out which one it was.