"Because death is just so full, and man so small." -M&S

January 9th, 2011. Three months to the day that your co-worker's car spun out of control--tossing you out rather than trapping you inside--and I dream of you for the first time. Finally.

But the dream doesn't alleviate my fearful sorrow with these images of you I'm given--because where are you now, if not in some goddamn lucky afterlife? No sé... Instead, they delineate and depict the monumental sadness I feel constantly with this living loss of you--the only thing we have left to hold onto. And even bloom fresher streaks of sorrow with the inadequacy of their pictures: You. Older than you should be. And yet at 7, wearing that gray dress you used to have and your cut short blonde hair, speaking animatedly and happily to someone outside of the frame of my mind's eye. Probably Jacob, I think. And then me, as I was--thick bangs past my brows, with long straight hair and an ugly flowery dress with a mismatched, open scruffy shirt over. Younger than I should be. Walking into the room looking always unkempt and insecure. Uncomfortable in my skin; unblessed with your grace. How you held out your hand to me without even looking my way, once I'd settled into the corner alone. How grateful I felt! Crawling toward you, toward your outreached hand, and then laying my head on your knee. My present self in the doorway, watching you place that hand on my younger self's shoulder. Watching my own young face smile; her eyes close, seeming finally at ease. All the time sobbing underneath that door frame, knowing what I know.

I texted you tonight: "Home safely. :) Love you all! Thanks for a lovely weekend." Automatically, in a bulk message to our family, letting them know I made it back alive because this is necessary now. I clicked your name in my phone with everyone else's: "Beautiful!" Up at the very top on purpose, as it's always been.

And I got a response back immediately that stilled my heart--making my stomach flip with excitement that even then knew itself to be doomed; to surely melt into disappointment: "Whoz thiz"?

Breath stopped; tears immediate; slight nausea soon to follow. I steeled my shaking hands and responded, knowing nothing had changed--impossible to forget or pretend: "Sorry, this used to be my sister's number. I didn't realize it was re-activated."

Because I lie. It wasn't an accidental text at all. I very deliberately include you in these stupid little family updates. Every time. Even before the phone company disconnected your number, cutting off what wasn't your voice anyway, since you never recorded your own messages. And then after, too, just because. On the principle of the matter. Because I love you and want you to know that I'm safe. Because you're not. If I'd had a camera on my phone I'd have still sent pictures of flowers to your disappeared phone--every morning, if I remembered--just cuz you always used to like getting them. I include you in these texts because it feels wrong not to. Until now. Now that all of a sudden, there's someone else on the other end:

"Oh its ok". That being it. It. Like nothing. 'Course it isn't.

-L (1/31/11)

[113]

[No longer able to sleep through the night. / Summer internship, back in L.A., to stay in your house if I dare. / Your phone no longer disconnected, answering me with someone else's text. / Auna-long-talks. Lovely. Jake's birthday, and the dinner/dessert/concert. / Unforgivable, the drop-off rate of friends, done with it. / And 1,000 Memories. The fear that comes with it not working. / Sisters--and what it's like to be one. And the lonely women who have no idea. / Angry cell phone--lost in the stupid freakin' desert. No one to blame. Like Mecca; the Holy Grail. / No message...disconnected. / "Do you ever not think about her?" No. How much easier if I believed in the afterlife... At all? / "Interesting" facts at school--not you. Because how to answer what's up in your life, when you know they don't want to know? / Honoring you with regret? How else? The love not being able to hold you. / Grief book. For siblings. No one else interested in having it. / 1-9&10-2011, and dreams... 1st: Me, you, young. Crawling over to be comforted. You reaching your hand out without even looking; head in lap, finally able to relax. 2nd: Losing something, a pocket watch, gold and antiqued and feminine--for to double as a locket? Needing to give it to you; not finding it anywhere. Everything falling apart, everywhere I touch. And you in a hurry to go. But not wanting to.]

[-L (1/31/11)]

Old French People

-L (1/21/11)

Honoring you with my regret -- the only way I know how.

(Forever and ever m'love.)

-L (1/11/11)

All at once a universal loss, while so unexpectedly unique for each person who loved her...how strange.

To the question, "What's the point of living if you just die?", Raj Bains from Sacramento, California had this to say:

"The point of life is whatever you make it. There really doesn't need to be any point to life or any particular aspect of it; most things are worth doing for their own sake. You don't watch a movie or read a book or hug a child because there is some sort of overriding existential purpose for doing so, you do those things because they are enjoyable and/or important to you.

The universe even gives a few suggestions in the form of biological imperatives. For simple life, that merely means reproduction. For more intelligent life, that includes things like satisfying their curiosity, enjoying the world through all of their senses, passing on knowledge/ideas, and experiencing things like love and friendship.

This question seems to imply that a religious purpose gives life meaning. The truth is, religious purpose deprives life of meaning. It turns life into a bizarre tryout for heaven and makes the here and now completely unimportant. There's no reason to seek knowledge of the way the world works if this is just temporary and the only reason we're here is to convince God that we're going to join his fan club so that he won't punish us (because he apparently has the maturity and temperament of a 4-year old). Most religions go a step further and actually forbid engaging in earthly delights while they eat up loads of the person's time and money.

The knowledge that our time is limited (and that there is nothing after) is what lights a fire under our asses to go out and get things done, to figure out how things work, to improve technology, to try to make life better, to care about issues in the world. People are so busy being afraid of death that they fail to realize that it is ultimately our primary motivation and the only reason life has any sense of urgency.

Death is the only thing which gives life meaning."

Beautifully spoken, indeed. But no less bullshit. Lose someone you love more than life itself, then come back and tell me that. The problem is that ninety percent of the time, anyone who spouts off about death is really talking about making peace with the inevitability of their own. In fact, dying's not the problem with death at all. It's living with the loss of someone else that really fucking hurts. And it's grief that steals the meaning from life, as well as from the bullshit we like to say about it.

(Or at least, that's the bullshit I apparently feel the need to share...)

-L (12/31/10)

P.S. Happy freakin' New Year, y'all. May it be a little easier than the last.

And then the days became briefer, still.

Mi hermana hermosa,

First Christmas, come and gone; four months to the day of what should have been your 22nd birthday. Can't believe the speed of time these days, nor the space it holds. Or for whom.

Today, down time; tomorrow, tattoos and your house, revisited. Last night we played soccer-tennis out in the well-lit courts of Murdy Park, HB, and now the crown of my head feels like a sore, braided muscle every time I forget not to touch it. (Luckily my thinking hasn't been too affected, so far...as far as I can tell.) It dawned on me and stayed, the knowing that you sh/would have been right there with us--and even so, would likely have refused to play. Like R's board games; or my climbing. Neither your style nor taste, but how unfailingly you stand-right-by to stay connected; interacting and ever-present, yet one step away. Sitting there texting. Giving us as much of yourself as you could, but never crossing the line of your own in-stone boundaries...and all the while loving us for loving what we love. (Why didn't we play more freakin' cards with you, more often?!)

Gabriel's first birthday is coming up, too. January 5th, 2011. Yesterday we celebrated it early so that the California crowd could participate before R and J make their trek back up to Washington. It struck me that he was practically the only kid there, our nephew--and all the rest a-freakin'-dults! (With the exception of Amber's nearly-4-year-old, Aaden, of course.) How it kills me to think that you won't see this first baby of any of our brothers grow up! You who would have bought him the best gifts; taken him to the sickest concerts; made all his friends jealous to have such a gorgeous aunt; snuck him his first fake-id, only to rail him if he dared "misuse" it... He will forever be my gauge, though I know it's not fair: one year further along for him; one more year farther away from you. The older he gets, the younger you'll seem to be. The more he changes, the more you'll stay the same... How sad is this? How unfair?

But I know this is an old story by now, our endless disappointment. What with the days becoming briefer and the time flying by like pennies tarnishing in a koi pond. You're the angel on our tree this year, love. You and a floppy red Santa's hat, that really ought to be pink silk with faux diamonds, sparkling. J's birthday will follow Gabriel's, and then Grandma's (who'll soon get her first tattoo at 80-something, she thinks...a bow, of course), and then Dad's and A's and yours, and then all the rest of ours. One by one, delineating the year in the only way we know how--by counting, one day at a time. They say this year will be the hardest; I'm pretty sure they'll all be the same.

-L (12/27/10)

Two Months. ("Dos meses...y como ayer.")

Hey girlfriend,

You wouldn't be impressed with me right now. I'm a little bit drunk, a little bit stoned, and a lotta bit downtrodden. It's two months today, and I feel as raw as an oyster, just slid from her shell. Every silly 'indiscretion' committed by another person today was earth-shattering; ridiculously distressing. Midday I called our texting mama, telling my boss she was surely having a rough day. Really, I just needed to get the fuck out of work for a minute--to lament you with someone who kinda-sorta understood...maybe even better than I? (And I swear to God I just heard a girl's cough on the front porch, although I know I'm alone. Look! Sierra heard it, too! But now she's putting her head down & going back to sleep...forgetting it ever happened. I wish I could do the same.)

My head feels heavy.  My heart, empty.  And my eyes are starting to sting.  ("No es justo.")
I love you so very much.

-L (12/10/10)

(Talking in terms of YEARS, now, rather than DAYS. Counter-intuitive, I know.)

Beautiful Baby Sister,

How the tears come less loyally now!! (Already?)

*The look of my life from here on out, now that it's without you:

Year.	Years You Aren't.	Years Gone.	Years I Am.	Life.
2010	21	0	26	Law School & Sadness
2011	22	1	27	Law School
2012	23	2	28	Pass the Bar
2013	24	3	29	Work
2014	25	4	30	Work & Sadness
2015	26	5	31	Pay Off School Debt
2016	27	6	32	Become Foster Parent
2017	28	7	33	Work and Foster
2018	29	8	34	Work and Foster
2019	30	9	35	Work, Foster, Sadness
2020	31	10	36	Write a Book
2021	32	11	37	Write & Travel
2022	33	12	38	Write & Travel
2023	34	13	39	Write & Travel
2024	35	14	40	Write, Travel, Sadness
2025	36	15	41	Retire, So On and So Forth, Eventually Die.

What do you think, baby girl? I'm just so afraid of living without you for any longer than I got to live with you...*

So, 21 years from now: I'll be 47 (almost as old as mama and dadda are today...). That's pretty freakin' good if you ask me! I've decided that I'll make it that far if I'm given the option. Of course, you would have been 42 at that point, had you lived...the age that I always used to think of as officially "old". And all the while, years had nothing to do with it. (Though I always thought that I already knew that.)

-L (12/7/10)