You moved away when I was young to have adventures which could
only belong to you, but you always wrote long and loving family letters telling
us your tales. We were missing one of our
essential ingredients but there was a comfort in knowing you were always somewhere
else waving the flag for us, building your future. You would walk through the door on visits
complete with your smiles, dark cloud of hair, beautiful dimples and your unusual
grey green eyes that were prone to flash dangerously if you were driven to anger. A big sister to be proud of, a hero to
worship, a beautiful soul to love.
The years passed. I grew
older and closer to the time when it would be my turn to strike out in the world. My dreams, no matter how they changed, never
failed to include you somewhere in the fringes. I quietly nursed unvoiced ideas that you
would be a bigger part of my everyday life. On visits we talked about things we would do together,
jumbled, laughing excitable brain storming sessions. You never
squashed my ambition. You never laughed
at my opinions. Support and humour were
your tools of sisterly love.
Then the day that would change all days came. You were taken from us, no notice, no warning,
no preparation. A cruel twist to life’s tale.
I can still feel the agony as I think of that day, though the memory of
it has been blunted and dulled by the passing of time. My inner organs twisted and shrank together
into a hard ball of pained loss which I carried with me for some years. Glass shards in my heart making holes that would never
properly heal. How could it be you were
no longer somewhere in the world waiting for us? How could you not be there to see your children
grow? What could we possibly have done
that was so bad to deserve having one of our own taken away, too soon, too
young, too cruelly? How could our
parents be burying a daughter? Why were you, a kind and well-meaning woman, taken
whilst the world was still filled with heartless and ruthless bullies and
despots who thrive on the back of the suffering of others?
Why did I not tell you I love you the last time I saw you? I watched your train pull away clueless that I
would never see you again. This was a precious moment lost forever. For a long time, I plagued myself with
imagining your last moments in the accident.
What went through your mind? What
was the last thing you said? Did you
suffer? Were you frightened? These questions drove me insane and filled by
head in quiet moments, blocking out sleep for weeks.
I didn’t want my memory to be tainted by a vision of you
tumbling through space inside the vehicle and I fought hard to remove those thoughts. I found no comfort in religion or in
God. I wanted to, I tried, but it was
just a poor sticking plaster for me. I
found some comfort in family and the shared pain made it easier to carry the load
of loss. In the end though I realised
that the healing can only come from within ourselves. My
life has always been a little colder without you. The world has been emptier, knowing you are
no longer occupying a physical space on it somewhere waiting for me to share my
plans and dreams with you.
So, the best
I have is for you to live in my heart and in my memories. Never forgotten. Always loved.
@redalphababe
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