Slips of Memories

"Matthew, you need to come home….please. I know….I know what I’m asking just, please…It’s your sister. There’s been an accident. Please, you need to come home. I know…I know, just please….come home.”

Only the stammering, tear ridden voice of my mother could have brought me back to this house before I chose to…before I was ready. I would never say it out loud, but the borderline hysterical message left in my voicemail scared me. My mother never cried. For that reason alone, I am here, standing in my little sister’s room. The echoes of childhood memories long gone reverberated against the empty walls of the house. This house…truly silent for the first time I could recall. It was as if the age-old creeks and groans of a house well lived in had chosen to remain silent out of respect for the absence of its inhabitants, for those who filled it with life to begin with.

I gave my stalk still body a shake to break the trance I had been lulled into. I had been given a task here, and I wanted to be out as quickly as possible. It’s slightly unnerving to be alone in my sister’s room filled with pictures of people I don’t recognize, art projects I didn’t realize she had the skill to complete, and the lack of any reference to myself in it. My job was to gather books, some clothes, and maybe a few pictures. I honestly couldn’t tell if I was chosen to go because my mother wanted to keep the peace amongst people who had forgotten how to be together, or because she wanted to involve me in taking care of my sister. The timing of it all leads me to believe it was the former. My well-practiced indifference was enough to keep me from caring either way. Regardless, my mother made it clear that she wanted everything to be ready for when my sister wakes up. There was not a person in that hospital room who could fail to notice her continued insistence on the word ‘when’ instead of ‘if.’

Comas aren’t usually accompanied by certainty. She had been asleep for six days, four days longer than her doctors were hoping. I tried not to think of the state of my relationship with my family who raised me when I considered the fact that I had only been called on day three. Not that I could blame them. Even I wasn’t sure if I was going to come.

I don’t know exactly how it all fell to pieces. My level of analytical self-awareness had fallen as my level of mindful avoidance had increased. There wasn’t one single fight or explosive event that drove the rift between myself and my family. The circumstances were blurry in a way that only emotion can cause. If I focus hard enough on the hurt they caused me, I can almost forget my part in it. It would be easier if there was one thing, one person, one reason to blame…but there isn’t.

I waved my hand across my face as if I could physically bat away these thoughts ruminating in my brain. With a steadying breath, I grabbed a duffle and started packing. It was only in packing items that I thought she would like did I realize how little I knew of the woman my baby sister had become. Long gone were teen romance novels and Nancy Drew mysteries. In their place were complete works of Jane Austen, mythology, psychology, and old leather-bound classics. The beginner’s drawings with attempts at shading were replaced instead with several acrylic works in progress, and walls highlighted by canvases filled with detailed visions of color and artistic expression. When I open her closet to quickly pull out a couple of her favorite outfits, I realize with a start that those favorites are gone. When I left, she was a sixteen-year-old still in the height of trial and error when it came to a personal sense of style. Lining the hooks were dresses and jumpsuits that told the story of a confident and classy young woman.

As the tell tale burn of tears begin to rise in my throat, my desperation increases along with them to keep the Pandora’s box of emotions sealed shut. What did I owe her? She could have stuck with me because that’s what family is supposed to do, right?! Isn’t that what we are always told? Unconditional love and all that bull. Despite any problems I have with my parents, I couldn’t fault them for not trying. Their consistent phone calls, and the equally consistent lack of response on my part is just as annoying as it is hopeful. What I need is time and space, that’s all. My best friend of childhood abandoning me was not something I had thought would happen. I know she was mad at me, and maybe she was right to be mad for a while, but she stuck with it, and I don’t know how to forgive her for that.

This inner dialogue was not helping my efforts to retain control. The swarm of conflicting thoughts and emotions was foreign to how I had chosen to live my life over the last number of years. Unwanted rage rose from the pit of my stomach as my fist clenching the duffle of my sister’s unfamiliar items began to shake. Somehow, every ounce of weight in that bag was a physical representation of what had been taken from me.

With that final thought, a hoarse cry I didn’t recognize tore out of my throat as I flung the heavy duffle toward the dresses in the closet. Even though I had been the one to throw the bag, I couldn’t help but flinch when the loud thump of books crashing into the back of the closet caused a rack of shoes to fall after it.

My chin fell to my chest with a sigh while I gathered the tumultuous thoughts bouncing around in my head. Several even breaths later, I walked over to pick up the fallen shoes and retrieve the traitorous duffle. After picking up the last of the heels, I reached out to grab the bag when my open hand froze as my eyes were pulled toward a box. The box was settled against the back wall of the closet, easily hidden by the hanging dresses when standing. From my viewpoint kneeling however, I could see a square box wrapped in plain brown paper. There were no markings, no notes, nothing that would identify what the box contained or who it was intended for.

My heartbeat began to reverberate in my chest as it quickened its pace. I couldn’t take my eyes off of the package. It was none of my business. There was no reason to think that this package had anything to do with me. It would be wrong to open it. This could be personal. Maybe it was a gift for someone else, or a gift for my sister she never opened.

Without my permission, I watched more than felt as my hands reached forward to grab onto the brown paper covered parcel. There was an unexplainable, powerful sense of gravity I felt toward the box. I should leave it alone. It is none of my business. My sister would not have this for me, it doesn’t make any sense. I should let it be. I should walk away.

My fingers tore open the paper. The sharp ripping broke the silence that had filled every corner, and I found it difficult not to flinch. With the paper removed, I guided the lid off the box. There was no turning back now.

Confusion was the first emotion flooding my system as I stared at a pile of sealed envelopes. Each plain side of the envelopes were labeled with numbers: Days 1-50, Days 451-500, Days 601-650 and so on. My confusion was interrupted when I read my own name written across one thinner envelope.

Stunned, I tore into the envelope labeled ‘Matthew,’ and pulled out with rattling fingers a single sheet of paper lined with my sister’s handwriting.

My dearest brother Matthew,

I don’t know if you will read this letter. I don’t know if you would open it if I sent it to you, and to be honest I don’t think I am brave enough to send it in the first place. I wish I was braver. I wish I was stronger. I wish I knew what to do. But I’m not, and I don’t. I’m working on it.

You asked for space, and I gave it to you. I would never be able to say in a letter how hard it has been to keep my distance, so I won’t try. Even though giving you space is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, I will do it, because that’s what you told me you needed. I still miss you. I miss our friendship, and I am so afraid of the numbness that’s taking its place. I miss sharing all of the stupid, and all of the beautiful, and all of the crap of life with you. I had to do something, so even if you have no interest in talking to me, I have things that I would love to share with you, even if they’re told years from now. It has been six years since you stopped answer my phone calls, and six years since you knew what was going on with me and my life. And no, what you know from social media doesn’t count. So, in this box are six years worth of memories. In spite of it all, I love you, and I hope we’ll see each other again someday.

Love, Kira

I read the words again…and again…and again. The words still didn’t quite process as I tore open envelope after envelope of colored slips of paper with handwritten phrases lining each.

I passed my first semester of college today!...

So, there’s this guy…I think I’m in love honestly. His name is…

I made the girl’s rugby team!...

Mom had a really hard day….please call some time….please…

So, turns out that guy was just trying to get to my friend, so never mind about him…guys suck….

Oh man, what a great day! So much to tell you! To start off…

Today wasn’t good…it just wasn’t….

I wish you had been here! Grandma was so happy about her party, it was so fun!...

I wish I could introduce you to my boyfriend, I think you’d like him….

I watched this crazy movie, let me tell you about this madness….

Dad misses you so much, he’s never been great at saying things like that, but he does…

I graduated college today, I wish you had been there…

I hugged as many of the notes as I could hold possessively to my chest as tears tracked down my face. I don’t know when they started to fall, but they showed no signs of stopping. What are you supposed to do when everything you thought was clear suddenly gets turned on its head? There was no way to tell how long I sat with my knees digging into the hardwood, clutching slips of paper written by my dying sister in my hands. I might have sat there dazed out of my mind all night if my phone’s ringtone didn’t sound loudly. My heart dropped into my stomach at the thought of my mother calling to tell me that my sister had died. That couldn’t happen, I wanted to make this right…I needed to make this right.

My hands fumbled clumsily to answer the phone as the colored slips of paper fluttered to the ground. The remnants of devastating thoughts stilled rattled around as I took the call from my mother.

“Matthew? You have to get here, it’s your sister…she’s awake”