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[deathofafamilymember]

“This morning I will make no effort in sleep. I will lay in quiet and in peace and if it takes me then I will submit. If it does not, then I will start the day anyway.”

— A tired me, always

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One thing I have learned in my time is that drunk me spouts wisdom and idiocy, there’s a fine line between the two.

A drunk me, a happier me

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I will not blink. I will not force the tears from my eyes. I will wait, unflinching, and if they fall they will fall on their own.

A stronger me from another time

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At a point in my life I had cried at every single time of day. I could’ve reached that point when I was three and had very little concept of time or when I was nineteen and was far too aware of it. I just know that there is not a single second on the clock, day or night, that has not been drenched in my tears.

Me, sadly, it’s me

[deathofafamilymember]

April is the cruelest month.

T.S. Eliot

I fear my May flowers will never sprout. I’m afraid that I’ll be stuck in winter, forever buried under layers of snow and ice, buried in time. The harsh winter winds that hurt and redden my face while I dream of warmer days and floral sights. The winter is hard but easier to live through because of the thoughts of spring that guide you. Then snow turns to rain and the rain turns to flowers but I fear that the rain will never stop and the flower buds will be washed away by the onslaught of mud. It is a cycle but what if the cycle ends and if it does what if it ends on the less pleasant interval and I’m stuck there. Will I be trapped in snow or mud or meadows? It changes every day. Someday it’s a snow bank, others a muddy field, few a flourishing garden. Right now I’m very cold and the sky is very gray.

[deathofafamilymember]

8. The current now

Kristen was pregnant. We were all very happy. I was even making jokes like “they can’t take this one away.” And, of course, I was wrong. About three weeks along, two days before her 28th birthday, she started having stomach pains. She went through a lot of pain. She went to the doctor and they said she had a miscarriage and that it was going to hurt for a bit. And it did. She felt weird about it though so she went to a different doctor. It turns out that she was still pregnant but needed emergency surgery. The pregnancy was ectopic and had ruptured her fallopian tube. If it had not been treated then she would have died. I don’t know what to do with this information but I have it so I’m writing. I feel sad and a little angry about it because they did take this one away too. They also lowered her chance of having another child. They also almost took another sister from me at the age of twenty-eight. I don’t know who They are. I think maybe God or fate or whoever runs this universe and decides what happens. There has to be a They though. There’s too much coincidence in life for their not to be. All of these things keep happening, birth, death, life, everything; something has to be running it. I don’t know what to do if no one runs it. I hope there is a God because I hope there is reason. I hope that there is someone who makes everyone do what they do and everything do what it does because that’s what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s an utterly terrifying thought that life just happens with no method or reason or right. So, I hope there is a God and I hope that he knows what he’s doing because I sure don’t. None of this is what I wanted to happen but it’s what did.

[deathofafamilymember]

7. The coming and going

I am in the ocean. The ocean is seen here:

Somedays I am at the top:

These days I can see the shorelines and the boats and the people.

Other days I am at the bottom:

These days I am surrounded by blue, the sea around me and the sky above me and nothing else in sight.

[deathofafamilymember]

6. The after of the aftermath

I’m only inspired to write when I am very, very sad. Some days I will write a lot. I write until I’m tired and every thought that was throwing itself against the walls of my brain have leached through my nerves and fingers to stain the paper in front of me. A white page that becomes drenched in black ink that show my every feeling. Sometimes what I write is good, sometimes it is not but it needs to come out anyway. Even when I’m out with friends or my family or working at work, which is the place that you’re not supposed to get inspired, I will think a thought that will repeat itself over and over and over until I write it down. Normally the lines end up in the note section on my phone but sometimes I don’t like the thought so I sleep to forget it.

So, you now know, that every line you’ve read and probably every line that you’re going to read was written and is going to be written by a very, very sad person. I have a chemical imbalance in my brain I think. They’re a pesky thing, those chemicals. There are special people I can talk to and special pills that I can take though. I have to pay for them, of course. I have to pay to be happy or, at least, normal. A lot of people do. The issue is that to get those things you must be able to get out of bed and make a phone call. You must be able to shower and put clothes on and go outside and be incredibly well-to-do, but the people who need those things don’t have those abilities. Those wonderful, wonderful abilities. Some days I have them as well but of course those are the days that I can get the pills and the help but those are also the days when I don’t need them. Now I could always get them anyway and be prepared for the days that I’m in desperation for them but that would imply that I have foresight and am not just bitching about my problems without fixing them. But, unfortunately, I am not and I am, respectively.

I used to be very creative. I used to write intricate stories about the clash of good and evil but I’m not entirely sure that either exists now. They might, but right now everything is a lot more gray for me. There are no angels and demons duking it out for the fate of the world. Things just happen and people just die and we all just move on. I can’t write creatively anymore because I don’t know anything about them so I can’t and don’t particularly want to. I am writing realistically now. I am far too preoccupied with real life to muse over the happenings of a fictional one.

I can only write my truths. That’s something I need you to remember. I need you to remember that I am telling my truth. To my knowledge, I have not written a single false word. However, everyone has experienced it differently. Anne would tell it differently, much more dramatically, Josh would tell it in another way, much more blunt, my mom would tell it maybe softer, my neighbor down the street would differ, as would a person across the globe, and I’m sure even Sierra would have a much more interesting telling of what happened. You have a different version as well. You were alive the night that Sierra’s life ended, everyone was. Everyone is always very alive while someone is dying. So what did you do that night? Do you remember? What are you doing tonight while someone’s life is ending or is being undeniably altered? What are you doing every second while someone is suffering? What are other people doing when it’s your turn to suffer? The answer is that other people are living. Other people are living and you are living and I am living and Sierra is not. Then there will be a time when you are not living and I am not living and Sierra won’t be still. But other people will always be living until maybe the Earth is snuffed out by the sun and maybe even after that.

I don't particularly like those thoughts but they were thrashing in my head for quite a while. Back to creative writing, because that’s what this is all about isn’t it? The writing? I write about myself now because I’m conceited and pretentious like that. I am writing, specifically now, because my previously mentioned chemicals were particularly unbalanced this weekend. My serotonin was doing trapeze tricks with no net beneath it and it had fallen and is now recuperating.  Maybe one day it’ll make its appearance again and it will be a spectacular show.

I think this weekend was bad because two days ago on April, Friday the 13th, it was my birthday. The same day my birthday appears every year. My grandfather died last year on April the 14th. He no longer appears every year. My best friend, Holly, her birthday is on December 9th every year. You know that Sierra also died on December 9th two years ago. My serotonin fell from the trapeze at some point soon after. It seems that death is like a row of dominoes or a wave, perpetually overtaking one after the other.

I felt sick this weekend. I had a very serious cold but without any of the fever, or coughing, or stuffy nose. Just the complete discomfort and the reason to stay in bed for days. To counteract that discomfort I do things that I shouldn’t do. I intake the incorrect chemicals into my body. I take in the alcohol, the nicotine, and the THC because they make me feel better for a little while, these serotonin replacements. These very unhealthy substitutes have a name. They are called

V-I-C-E-S

and I adore them. My other, slightly healthier, vice is writing. I’m not nearly as good at that as I am intaking my other vices. I’ve said I’m a bad writer a lot in this book so far which is counterproductive for selling a book. I think this though because I can only write about one topic. That’s like a painter who can only paint one painting over and over again without ever really changing anything. I can only write this one topic because I can only write what I know about and I know about sadness and loss and not much else. I think that it’s okay though because it makes me feel better anyway. Sometimes it makes me feel worse though. It’s a game of writing roulette but if I don’t play then I will always lose. So around and around I go on the giant roulette wheel. Sometimes I miss being a child. I miss my bike and those wonderful summer days.

I wrote this chapter earlier. I took a shower and feel better now. It’s not a wonder why water is a symbol for rebirth in literature.

[deathofafamilymember]

5. The dreams

One of the worst parts of Sierra’s death, besides of course her death, losing Alex, and the severe mental trauma from it, would be the dreams. After she died I dreamed vividly and often. They were good dreams, the best in fact, where she would come home and my whole family would be there and she would explain to us that she had to fake her death for some insane reason but she was back and everything could go on as usual. Everyone was so happy. There were tears and hugs and a joyful reunion where I can honestly say that never in my life have I ever been as happy as I was in those dreams. They were the greatest gift. However, the true nightmare was when I woke up. I would wake up in the middle of the night and I would forget. I was able to forget that she had died. I hate forgetting though because that means that I have to remember which means I have to relive it again. I can never describe to you the absolute bliss felt in those dreams and the absolute crushing weight of the awful truth that overcame me once again when I eventually remembered. The dreams are both a blessing and a curse.

[deathofafamilymember]

4. The light of my life, Alex

This chapter will cover Alex, police, and funerals. There are some illegal going-ons in this chapter but I’m not sure what the statute of limitations are on them. Now we meet the antagonist of this book, besides fate of course. Before Sierra’s death, Jason Anderson, father of Alex in no respect but biological, decided that he wanted to be a part of Alex’s life. What this really means is that he had no prior contact with Sierra or Alex for the three years that Alex was alive but once Jason had found another woman to prey upon he needed to become an upstanding person, so to say to act like one. The thing that you must know about Jason is that he is a sociopath. He finds women who were in abusive relationships and manipulates them and their families. He can’t keep a job, he’s a cheater, a liar, and a thief, but the worst thing he’s ever done was take Alex from us. Jason Anderson had only met Alex twice in his life before Sierra’s death. Both times were an hour long supervised session at Children Services. However, when Sierra died, the magistrate who oversaw the case saw that the mother of the child was dead and that the biological father was still alive so he gave the biological father custody. The court ripped a 3 year old child from the family that raised him and placed him in the house of a stranger he had only met twice before. Not to mention that my family had and still has a lawsuit against Jason Anderson, he was and is on probation, had broken it numerous times, and claimed that he was mentally unstable in court from the army even though he was dishonorably discharged during boot camp. All of these facts were overlooked and the best thing in my life was handed over to one of the worst. Of course, Jason would not let us have any contact with Alex after Sierra’s death. Two years later, at the time of writing this book, he still won’t. My family and I have one weekend a month court ordered visits. We raised him and are now only allowed to see him once a month. The world truly has many injustices. I will say that if Jason at least cared for Alex, it would be almost bearable, to know that he was safe and happy. However, this is not the case. Jason has been trying to use Alex as a bargaining chip. He has told us numerous times, over text because he refuses to speak to us in person, that if we drop the lawsuit we have against him he would give us custody of Alex. Of course, he is lying, even if we did drop the lawsuit he would still exploit us for money or anything else he wanted and never give us Alex back.

He did not acquire Alex immediately after Sierra’s death. We still had him about two weeks after. This is because my parents knew that Jason would come for him so they took Alex somewhere. They didn’t tell anyone where so no one would have to lie if questioned by the police. They were willing to do anything to protect Alex. They were even hiding him during Sierra’s funeral. My parents were forced to miss their own daughter’s funeral in fear that Alex would be taken from us. I was not allowed to stay home at this time of course because of the police that came by often. I had to stay with my grandmother and grandfather. One night however, my dad drove back home to get more clothes for them and I went home to see him and shower. I exited the shower in my towel when the police knocked on the door. My dad motioned to me from across to the kitchen to get down on the ground where he already was. He crawled across the floor into his bedroom where he turned off the light and hid on the other side of the bed. There’s something about seeing your parent crawl in fear that is heartbreaking and indescribable. I had to lay on the floor in wait while my brother, the only one supposed to be at the house, answered and explained that no one was in the house but him and his wife and that he didn’t know where Alex and my parents were. Then the cops left and I had to wait on the floor for about 10 more minutes until we were sure they were gone. Then I had to leave while my dad still hid and I drove back to my grandparents house making sure that no cops were waiting outside.

The funeral, I believe, was the next day. Unfortunately, the weather that day was beautiful. It was mid December in the northern part of Ohio and the weather was bright, warm, and sunny with a nice breeze. I had to borrow Alena’s black dress because I didn’t have anything to wear since I had never been to a funeral before. I was late because I had messed up the time. They had to wait about 5 minutes for me to get there since I was going to be playing the piano when they brought in the casket and when they took it out. What I didn’t know was that the piano was in a little side room where the tech room was. I had to watch my sister’s funeral through large slanted wooden slits in the wall with no other company but the tech guy. I played Amazing Grace when her body was brought in and Terrible Things when she was taken away again. It was a closed casket so I didn’t see her before they took her to be cremated. The funeral was the last time I was in a room with her and I wasn’t even in the room.

Her ashes remain in a marble box with her name etched on it on a glass stand in the living room at my house. I asked my mom why and she said that she keeps her there because she wants to be buried with her. My mom is afraid that we won’t always live there so if we bury her she doesn’t want to move her and she wants to be laid to rest with her. I still don’t like the fact that she’s in our living room and I have to pass her everytime I go upstairs to my room but I understand. No mother wants their child to be buried before her. I just wish we were able to find a place for her that doesn’t put her on display.

[deathofafamilymember]

3. The life after

These next few chapters will not be linear. They will not be coherent and they will not flow like a book should flow. This is because for the next few months there was no actual order to anything that happened. The only scene that will be discussed in excruciatingly painful detail will be Sierra’s funeral because it is amazing how many tragedies can be wrapped in one large encompassing one. That following January, the first month of 2016, was one of the worst in my life. For many of the months following, even some now two years away from the event, I still feel as though I am trapped in that January, in the time where I did my best to cope with life altering news that I would be forever forced to live with and never did I think that it would ever get worse. But, of course, once began, life has a tendency of being relentless.

I wrote a very poorly written poem the night of Sierra’s death.  Josh and Kristen let me stay on their couch in the basement of our house where they lived. My brother thought I was asleep so I wrote this poem to the background sounds of my older brother sobbing with his wife in the other room.

The clocks never stop

They go on and on and on

But you’ve passed and you’re gone

They should stop

But they go

On and on and on

From six to eight and eight to nine

Mourn those who have been left behind

For here I remain

Always alone for

Forever and a day

Overall, it’s a disgrace to poetry but it was what I felt. It was very Auden inspired which I didn’t realize until later. It seems that we both had issues with time.

One of the worst memories that I have from the next few days was when I was laying on the couch late at night watching one of the Harry Potter movies. I believe it was about 2 days after. My dad was in the basement showering, my mom was asleep in her bed, and I assumed that Alex was too. Instead, he walked into the living room wiping his eyes and went and laid on the recliner. I asked him what was wrong and he just replied, in the saddest and meekest voice I have ever heard, “I miss my mommy.” I went to pick him up and couldn’t respond with anything else besides “Me too.”

Now, the point of this story, I suppose, is a way of coping. I know that this will not help. I know that I will forever have this grief follow me. I know that I will always feel this sadness leak from my core throughout my body, even in the happiest of times. I’ll be damned if I won’t still try it though.

I had never felt this pain of death before. I tried to move past it far too quickly. It happened on a Sunday night and I tried to go back to school Tuesday morning in my oversized sweatpants that weren’t to be worn in public. I walked in after the bell and the secretary, who was known to be unkind, asked me why I was late. I tried not to, but I burst into tears and said that my sister died the other night. This virtual stranger said “Oh sweetie!” and walked around her desk to hug me. I didn’t reciprocate nor appreciate it.

I went to my Advanced Placement Government class late where everything went about normally because no one knew besides Alena and my teacher. He said hello and I sat with Alena. Then I followed the schedule and walked to Advance Placement Calculus. I sat down next to my other best friend Holly, who Alena had informed, who scolded me for coming back so soon because I wasn’t ready. She was right. My friend from across the room, who I don’t know if he knew or not, said “Oh yeah, Eliza, turns out we have a quiz tomorrow!” I got up and told the teacher I had to leave. She said okay. Then I went home.

I went to a counselor once. It was about a month after Sierra’s death. I was still only seventeen at the time so I had to go to a children’s counselor. It wasn’t for the benefit of me though, more so for my mother. The counseling stopped, if it ever began, after the first meeting. I was told to paint my feelings and keep a sand garden. While that may help some people, it sounded insulting to me. This stranger, who had never felt and who never would feel my exact, unique, and isolating pain, had the audacity of telling me to garden sand.

[deathofafamilymember]

2. The course of the night

We’ll start with Lauren, my mother. She received a call from Phil telling her and my dad to get to Sierra’s house “right now”. Then they left and Alex and I were watching the Aristocats because he loved the kitties. I assumed everything was fine, even though they left in a panic, because this doesn’t happen to people like us, to families like us. Tragedies don’t happen to you, they happen to other people and you look on with pity and sympathy then immediately return to your, in comparison, picturesque life. So, on I went, happily and ignorantly enjoying the Aristocats. After some time had passed, a lot of time actually, after Kristen telling me “Sierra is dead” through tears, after I called my best friend Alena sobbing but not my other best friend Holly because it was her birthday, after Alena rushed over and held me while I sobbed, after my brother came back but before my father, my mother came home. She came home, lit a cigarette that she had quit seven years prior, and offered me and everyone else present a shot of Crown Royal. I don’t enjoy Crown Royal. It burns and is gross and did nothing for me that night. After she sat at the table and yelled, trying to find something to blame, she went to the bathroom. I heard her from the living room when she fell to the floor and the house shook with her heaving sobs. My sister, Anne, and my brother, Josh, both raced to the door knocking and trying to get in then loudly arguing about how the other one was only escalating the situation. It was a cacophony of sobs and yelling. My mom later tells me that she has no memory of that. I don’t remember seeing her for the rest of the night either.  

Next, I suppose, we can talk about my father, George. He didn’t do much but sit in the recliner and watch television, completely silent. For short bursts though, he would retreat to his and my mom’s bedroom then resurface minutes later. However, one scene that I vividly remember, was when he couldn’t make it to the bedroom in time. I caught a flash of his redden and tear soaked face with tightly shut eyes that he tried to hide with his hands. It didn’t work.

Now, Josh, my brother, who was previously mentioned. The only part I remember was when he came in the house after going to Sierra’s. He walked in the door and saw me hovering over the trash can. He came and held me, painfully crushing me to his chest, him being about a foot taller than me. He’s a very lanky man.

He told me that I had to be strong. That I was one of the strongest ones there and I had to keep it together so the rest of my family could. His heart was in the right place but it was painfully, painfully unfair.

Then, my sister Anne and sister in law Kristen, married to Josh. I don’t really remember them at all that night except when Kristen told me that she had died.

Lastly, me. There is no way to describe what I felt that night besides a complete and utterly crushing weight on every part of my body that I suppose will never really subside.

[deathofafamilymember]

1. The introduction

If I wanted to write a good book, I’d start with when I was younger. I would describe my family perfectly and make you love them as much as I did. I’d make you feel as though you were a part of my family. I’d write it so that you would see how happy everyone was and while things did get really hard sometimes you would see that we loved each other. Then, by about the eighth chapter, I’d start the first paragraph with the call that my mother received. Then I would walk you through the stages of how I learned that my sister died. I’d tell you about my dad’s birthday party, how I was playing video games with my three year old nephew, how I convinced her to let him stay while she went home, how the lock on her door got stuck, how she crawled through the kitchen window like she had done multiple times before, how it was winter and it was cold, how the window fell on her neck, how it either broke it or suffocated her because I couldn’t tell you because I don’t know because I never asked, how I think it was suffocation because I read a website article about it and it told me that there were boot and nail marks on the wall and window from when she tried to free herself, how she died alone in the snow hanging from her own window in the house we had just helped her renovate. However, I don’t want to do that to you. I don’t want you to feel the loss that I have because it’s almost unbearable. So, I won’t write a good book. I’ll never write a good book.

Her name was Sierra.

I won’t make you live through that. What I will do is write, hopefully, a mediocre book. One that details how I will, hopefully, one day accept her death and live with it peacefully. Although I fear that day will never come.

What you must know, is the background of Sierra’s life. I don’t know how she would feel about me publicizing the truth of her life but I suppose she isn’t around to tell me. So, in the next paragraph, I will try to sum up the looks, personality, feelings, and life of my departed sister. Of course, I will fail, but I will start with her birth.

Sierra was born on January 9th, 1987. The same day as my brother but a few years apart. She was shorter, skinny as a stick, had blonde hair that she cut to chin length and dyed black, or red, or purple depending on her mood, she had a slightly hooked nose, and an incredible smile and laugh. Her laugh was a clap and a squawk followed by some snorting.  She wasn’t the brightest, she was the definition of ditzy. At around 20, she was confused when my brother said that the earth revolved around the sun; she thought it was the other way around.. Her heart was always in the right place though.

She was eleven years older than me, her being the oldest sibling and me being the youngest. However, she was my best friend. I often stayed the night at her house, we went shopping together even though I loathed shopping, she cooked me dinner, and I loved her. She didn’t have very good taste in guys though because she always saw the best in everyone even if there was no goodness to be found in that person. First there was Mark who she married. He started out as a good guy. I was the flower girl at their wedding. Then he started doing drugs and tried to drown her in the sink. They divorced. Then there was Jason Anderson. They got engaged and I liked Jason a lot. Sierra got pregnant. Then we learned that Jason stole over $45,000 from us, cheated on Sierra repeatedly, spat on her, and was overall the worst object my family has ever had the misfortune of coming into contact with (besides a window of course). So, they separated. Then Sierra gave birth to the light of my life. Alex Nicholas Anderson. (My dad and I came up with the name Alex after we watched Wolverine). I helped raise Alex. I played games with him, read poetry and books to him, and loved him. My whole family did. We raised him for three years. After Jason came Kirby. He seemed alright and they got engaged. Alex got sick because he had a lot of health issues but he’s doing better now, he just needs a few breathing treatments sometimes. Alex was in the hospital for a long time and while she was there with him, Kirby broke off their engagement via text and we later found out that he was engaged to another girl at the same time as Sierra and he married her. Last was Phil. Phil was a good guy and a good stand in father to Alex. However, their relationship moved too fast so they were going to take a break. Sierra went to her house with a letter to give to Phil explaining this the night that she died. He was the one that found her.

Sierra died at the age of 28 on December 6th, 2015 at her home on Bonnie Brae Ave. in Auburn Hill, Michigan. I received the news of her death at 7:28 pm on a Sunday night from Kristen, my sister in law. Her un-proofread Facebook profile bio says:

“My name is Sierra.Im 26 years old. I have a great life..the most wonderful family and great friends. I have wonderful and beautiful son Alex Nicholas, who is my everything.”

And her favorite quote says:

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger!”

This is all very true, I couldn’t ever be clever enough to think it up. It seems that God or fate or destiny has a very ironic sense of humor.

[deathofafamilymember]

The beginning

I created this blog because I am a very sad person. Therefore, to become un-sad, I will begin writing about all the things that make me sad. I don’t know if I’m just writing this for me or if I’m writing this for you too. I just know that I’ve written many things and have no where to share them. I’m not sure I want to share them. However, words are written with the intention of being read. So here, hopefully, they will be read.