How Many Siblings Do You Have?

Daily writing prompt

What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.

“That is, the full impact of our brother’s or sister’s death begins to seep into our consciousness at precisely the same time when others might expect us to be feeling better.” ~ T.J. Wray, Surviving the Death of a Sibling: Living Through Grief When an Adult Brother or Sister Dies

I do not want to say I “hate” being asked, but it can become awkward when I am asked how many siblings I have. My sister has been gone for over twenty years now, and I still am triggered whenever I am asked. Do I tell them that I have two? But then they may ask where they live and what their professions are. Then I will have to say that one passed away. Things then become awkward and some start to apologize profusely. Some even ask how long it has been, and when I say that it has been over twenty years, some will shrug as if to indicate that it has been long enough.

Or do I just say one and leave it at that? But then I feel as though I am forgetting about my sister, and she deserves to be recognized as my sibling even though she is no longer here.

It is amazing how a simple question can be so complicated to answer.

Yes, it has been over twenty years since my sister passed away. I suppose one can argue that I should be “over” her death. And yes, in many ways, I am “over it” in that I do not cry every day anymore. And I may not even miss her every day anymore, but I do miss her, in a way that maybe one would miss their limb if it was amputated. I am sure that as time passes by, a car accident victim would get “over” losing their limb in an accident, but would they wish that they could have their limb back, if at all possible? I say, absolutely, yes.

Even though I no longer miss her every day, I actually miss her more. I miss her more whenever I see my parents growing older, on holidays when the lack of her presence is glaring, on her birthday, on the anniversary of the day she passed away, and most especially when I want to talk to someone who was a part of my childhood and who I had expected to be with me to the very end of my own life.

Billy Bob Thornton talked of his feelings about losing his brother. I echo everything he said:

“I’ve only had a couple of times in my life when I was carefree… For a couple of years I felt OK, which is very rare for me, and then he died. I’ve never trusted happiness since.”

“I have to really force myself to think that things are going to be OK in terms of worrying about my family, myself or one of my friends. I’ve never been the same since my brother died. There’s a melancholy in me that never goes away. I’m 50 percent happy and 50 percent sad at any given moment.”

“I don’t want to forget what it felt like when he died, because he deserves [that remembrance]. That’s how important he was to me. So, if I have to suffer and I have to be sad for the rest of my life, and if I have to be lonely without him… then that’s the way I honor him.”

“I’ll be sad and melancholy about that forever. I know it and I accept it and I live with it, but I think it’s OK. I think it’s OK to have all those feelings.”

“As an artist, that’s where a lot of your stuff comes from. You keep honoring those people forever by singing that song or writing that movie or doing that part in the movie or writing a book, whatever it is that has a sadness and a melancholy and a fear in it. Those are the things that keep them alive — whatever you put into your work or your family or your art.”

The Life of Autumn Grass

“Finally, she mused that human existence is as brief as the life of autumn grass, so what was there to fear from taking chances with your life?” ~ Mo Yan, Red Sorghum

I went to Maryland a few weekends ago to visit my sister. It was warm for a late October day. Nearly 80F/27C degrees. Too warm for Autumn, but I was glad to see that the leaves had started to change already.

Nearby my sister’s cemetery is Seneca Creek State Park. It was absolutely beautiful there. I realized then how much I had taken this place for granted when I used to live down there.

The following day, Sunday, October 29, I woke up to the news that Matthew Perry had passed away. I do not normally mourn the passing of celebrities, but this one hit me hard. I have always liked him, probably because he was so human, and because he was so open about his struggles. I am glad that he seemingly found peace in his life during the last few years of his life, and that he had found God. I pray that he can rest in peace. He is so loved and missed. I am not sure I can ever watch Friends again, and if I do, I know it will never be the same.

Dark Cloud

“Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.” ~ Ransom Riggs, Hollow

So many good things have been happening in my life. I am overwhelmed with all the blessings I have received lately. I am beyond grateful to God.

But I am not able to enjoy any of it because a dark cloud hangs over me constantly. The dark cloud follows me wherever I go, even in my sleep.

A few weeks ago, I woke up to the white light of the television set coming from the living room. My telly had somehow turned on by itself in the middle of the night. I am not sure how as the remote was nowhere near my bed. I was frightened, but I got up to turn it off. I checked the door to make sure no one had broken in, but the door was still securely locked. I went to the living room and turned off the television.

I went back to bed and started thinking about my daughter – about how she never sleeps at home anymore, how she never tells me where she goes, who she sees, and what she does. On the off chance that she does tell me something, oftentimes she is not being truthful.

I try every day, to reach her, to connect with her somehow. But she does not let me in. She is secretive and mysterious. I pray to God all the time to guide her and to guide me. We had a good run so far this year, but the tides turned again the last month, and when she is lost, I feel even more lost.

I would give up all the other good things happening in my life if only I could connect with her.

As I laid in bed thinking of her and feeling frustrated, I suddenly lost my breath and I felt myself gasping for air. I felt my body temperature rise and I suddenly became paralyzed. My heart and mind were racing, but my body was motionless and I could not breathe. I suddenly feared that I was going to die right then and there and I worried for the poor doormen who would have to break into my apartment to remove my smelly rotting corpse weeks after I had passed.

I am not sure how long I had been gasping for air, but it felt like an eternity. I felt myself losing consciousness as the lack of oxygen had started to make me dizzy and I felt even more panicked. But then I suddenly was flooded with a sense of relief at the thought of oncoming death, and as I had started to say my final prayers to God, I finally found my breath again, and I gulped up some air and I started to cough.

A part of me felt relieved that I did not die, but a part of me also wished that I had… died. I realized then that I was feeling exhausted and incapable of handling this situation with her, such that I was actually hoping for death just to be released from this torturous situation. I feel as though of all things that I done right in life, she was not one of them, that somehow I could never do right by her and that I could never do or be enough for her.

Pictures of You

“I was looking at the photographs and I started thinking that there was a time when these weren’t memories.” ~ Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Day 403.

Death has been the theme for me this past month with my uncle passing away last week and the 21st death anniversary of my sister on March 31.

Because of the lockdown last year, I was not able to visit my sister’s grave. I had been dreaming about her recently and I took it as a sign that it was time to make the trek down to Maryland to visit her.

St. Rose of Lima Church | Gaithersburg, Maryland

She is in a nice resting place. The grounds are well kept, and she is located underneath a tree next to the church. I sat with her awhile and told her that I missed her. I apologized for not visiting more often, but I know that she knows that she is always in my heart.

She died in 2000, so camera phones were not yet widely available, I don’t think. It was not how it is these days, with a camera readily available at your fingertips. These days, people take photos of everything, and I am grateful for the technology and to have the opportunity to document and immortalize important events in my life with videos and photographs.

I wish I had taken more photos with my sister. I don’t have nearly enough. All I really have are my memories, and those sadly tend to fade with time.

The last picture I ever took with my sister

2021-04-03

“There was nothing in the world

That I ever wanted more

Than to feel you deep in my heart

There was nothing in the world

That I ever wanted more

Than to never feel the breaking apart

All my pictures of you.”

~ The Cure, Pictures of You

Love Does Not Keep Score

“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the backyard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them the way he did. He was an individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.” ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

Day 401.

My uncle passed away last week. He was my father’s youngest brother. Among my father’s siblings, there’s only my father and his next oldest brother left. My father will turn 83 this year, and my uncle will turn 85 in June.

I had not seen my uncle since 2016, and prior to then, I had not seen him since I was a child. It is a curious thing how memories bind our love towards people even when we rarely see them. I have lifelong memories of my uncle from when I was about nine years old. We lived in California then and my uncle had not married yet. He came to our house often. I think he even lived with us for a time, if memory serves me correctly. Anyway, I remember how he was the “fun” uncle who would buy us candies and make us laugh. He had a wonderful singing voice too, reminiscent of Matt Monro. When I was around ten, my uncle married and then my cousin was born. After that, we rarely ever saw them, and some years later, my family moved to the East Coast, and I never saw him again until my visit to California in 2016.

2016-04-24

I feel as though I am not worthy to speak of him since I rarely ever saw him. In a span of a year, I probably only thought of him a few days out of the 365 days, on holidays and such. But love does not keep score, does it? Time and distance have no weight when you love someone. It is just there. And now he’s gone. But the love is still there. It was always there. And I will miss him and mourn all the days we did not spend together, but I will hold tightly to the memories I have held since I was a young girl.

See you later, Uncle. ♥