I didn’t intend to post again but something my baby sister posted and part of my conversation tonight with a friend jogged something loose.
I am not Johnny Cash, so this won’t be an opus that follows me forever I guess but once your little sister dies, you start to notice what she would’ve loved and what you can’t abide. Tonight’s example was a painting my baby sister posted.
I’m the oldest of 4 so I tend to say “little sister,” “little brother,” and ” baby sister.” In conversation, it helps delineate between which of my sisters I am speaking. My “little sister,” Chelsea, died almost 5 years ago of cancer. My “baby sister” is 19 and I will see her again in just a couple months, along with our brother. He’s the only boy, so he’s easy to mark out in conversation. He’s also the sibling who has heard the most of my sad grasp of the Spanish language (we are Honduran, after all) but he was two when he heard it, so I feel confident in his confidence. He’s now 22… so I’m really just counting on his forgetfulness. But he’s a kind and loving brother, so really, there’s just that. He’s a good man moving into a good future.
Also, it drives me nuts when medical professionals disregard my brother and sister as “not real.” No shit, a nurse recently said that to me. Fuck you, my “half” siblings are no less real than Chelsea was and the fact is, we still share 1/4 DNA. Ugh. Try some fucking compassion, y’all.
Anyway…
There is a line I walk. I know things Chelsea would’ve loved, like the painting my sister shared tonight. It was macabre and had weird denture sets throughout. Teeth? Yuck! Chelsea probably would’ve loved it. I’m not as…I don’t even know the word to describe it other than sticking with macabre.
Chelsea loved all things The Cure. Robert Smith’s recent reaction to being inducted to the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame was epic in its understatedness. Epic. He was her “boyfriend.” Probably should’ve stuck to her desires in men but oh well(longer story). She also was hard about her opinions of people. Once she made her mind up, you were done. You were either in or out. No in between. It’s really not a bad lesson, though I’m far more soft hearted.
The line I’m walking is keeping her alive and continuing on. It’s strange because July makes 5 years since she died and I’m still not recovered. How do you ever recover from your best friend and life partner dying? She was my first best friend and the person I spent the entirety of the beginning of my life protecting. How do you move on from that?
I am walking the line though. I have people in my life that need me to keep her flame alive. No one in this world except my mother can give her life force fire beyond the years her body gave her. Chelsea wouldn’t forgive those throwing their lives away. She expected a lot from those around her. She demanded much. She gave much. She was a reckoning embodied in a blonde bombshell. You knew if you ever crossed her, because she was loud (so loud) and (let’s not mince words) violent. Not in a bad way but as a kid, no one bit or kicked me as much as she and she would not stop screaming if she…no, she just never stopped screaming. She was so loud. I’m so quiet. It’s so funny how two kids from the same parents grew up so different.
So, I walk the line: between keeping to my world and living my time, and keeping her memory alive. Keeping her alive.
I miss her like no one else. My parents may have made her, but I feel like she was more a part of me than anyone else, even if we were polar opposites. I was her logic, she was my fire. I was her ground, she was my sky. We kept each other safe. She was mine to protect and then cancer broke through the barriers I had spent 3 decades building up around her recklessness.
This journeyed further than I expected with my impromptu title. I do walk a line…the line between being okay with life without my sister and the one where I’m not. I think she would’ve been proud of me. I’ve come far and she knew I was coming to Colorado. I don’t think she would’ve been even mildly surprised by my move to New Orleans. She knew I always wanted to be there…mostly because I dragged her there with me so often. Eventually, my baby sister and brother will get to experience my city with me, but Chelsea was there through it all (the “all” is 3 decades of memories, so we will leave it at, she knew I loved my city most).
There is a line. I don’t bring up my sister to bum others out. I don’t bring her up for sympathy. I take reactions I get as empathy and that’s always appreciated, even if it’s hard to take. The line is between keeping her alive in memory and allowing her to fade away. I can’t do the latter. She was my all and yet, she was my nemesis so often. Perhaps Holmes and Moriarty were really based on living siblings. Maybe not. I’ve never read those books, just seen the television adaptations.
No one in this world outside my momma, me, and my sister’s children, really know what it is to miss her. Everyone else has pieces. Those pieces aren’t less. They just aren’t what we had. We had every bit of her down to the gooey core that the rest of the world didn’t often see. She could love big. She could also be trite and spiteful. That’s recognizing who someone is.
I guess, in all this, all I can say is, I hope I’m half as well thought of, and twice as well recognized when my time comes. She left nothing public. Little in the way of photos (hence no photos here). She wasn’t a writer or a creator in the way I am. She didn’t draw, sing, or dance. You were either in her inner circle- and therefore loved forever or you were dead to her. That was it (Jessie, you know she loved you too).
I didn’t intend to write this tonight. Somehow, Chelsea just wanted some space, even if it’s through my tearful grappling with how I handle her memories. So it goes. I guess we all can only hope to have a few people we touched so deeply that they’ll spend all their waking days to keep us alive. We become immortal in memories and hopefully, that’s enough.