My Favorite Memories of You: The First to Reach Out.

It's gonna be a doozy, I can tell you that right now. But I can't not write this, right now. I can't let another minute go by with nothing being said, nothing being done, just waiting and hoping and praying that an earthquake will strike and one person, of the millions it would affect, would wake up and smell her own waisted self. I can only say that because I am like an injured dog, who cries out and limps off, but keeps on limping even after it's healed. But the reality is this: Charity was embodied by this person. I care so much about what happens to her that I haven't been able to say a single word in over two years. But tonight, as I became enraged, driving through the snow, listening to a story about how she has abandoned her first born, I wanted to cry out to her for the first time. And say "Look! Don't you see this!?!" I wanted to write her emails with only subjects, poignant and true, so that she couldn't avoid reading my words. The first would read "Your Daughter is SO Amazing. And You. Just. Lost."

But as I drove and the snow filled the street inch by inch, my husband became increasingly regretful that he had even told me the story. I remembered the last thing I had told her daughter. I told her I wondered how her Mom would take it if I were to write her letters, or e-mails, telling her just exactly why it hurts so bad. Because my life is full of the most amazing memories of the most amazing person. And I will never be able to forget her. So as softly as the snow fell I stopped yelling in anger, the catchy hurtful phrases that all of us humans are capable of. I started to tell Ariel "And the first line would read"; each time a memory of my best friend and most true confidant: "When you picked us up from the greyhound station", "Asking you for new mothering advice", "Watching you walking my babies to sleep". And so, even though there is a very dark part of me that just wants to tell her how hurt I feel and how much she is missing out on, I know that the truest parts of me want her back. So slowly, even though this is so very public, it's the only place I know she can't erase. It's also the only thing I have since I just got a mailer daemon from her e-mail. She'll never get it. But even so I hope to tell a story about how I got here, missing my sister so very much, because I Love her. 

First Subject line:

My favorite memories of you: The first to reach out.

Ensuing e-mail or letter which will never be read:

When I think of you I think of good things. My very favorite memory, the one that has endured strongest in the last couple years, was of you at the cemetery. There we were, a family confused, tired and drawn to our limits with preparations, sleeping in strange beds or no beds, hurting, wishing we could understand. And there was another group of people just feet away from us. The line was clear. We stood facing each other as the dedication of the grave was made. And then afterward we opened our eyes and looked at them. And they at us. I remember the sensation of bewilderment. The idea lingering that there were so many missing pieces to his life, and they were held by those others. I think, looking back that we really just wanted to feel close to Mark. But how to break the barrier between the hurt and knowing that these were the people he spent his last weeks and months with. They were even those who helped him into so many dark places. But You. You took it from inside of yourself to reach out. You walked across the grassy plot and began extending yourself. You introduced yourself, you gave hugs, you comforted. And it snapped us all back into place and suddenly we were aware that they were hurting just as much as we. I don't know if anyone else remembers it that way, But You did that.