Morning Dream Fog

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I woke up this morning feeling morose and my face was wet from crying.  The radio was at full blast and I scrambled to shut it off.  I stared at the ceiling, trying to pluck an image through the fog of my interrupted dream. There was a bed and a suitcase.  What else?

Her face, her shape, the way she moved materialized. I was sitting on her bed with my knees to my chest, pleading with her. She was darting back and forth, dresser to bed, closet to bed.

“Don’t go!”  I pleaded with her

“I have to.”

She stooped down to collect things from the bottom dresser drawer and she carefully packed them into her suitcase.

“Please don’t go, I’m going to miss you so much.”

“I know honey, but I have to go.”

“Why?”

“You won’t understand.”

I watched her finish packing and I sobbed.  Why was she doing this to me?  When she finished she sat next to me and threw her arms around me and hugged me tightly.

“I love you.” she whispered, crying into my neck.

And then I woke up to my alarm, my face wet with tears and the full expanse of the hole she left in my life crushed my chest.

In packing for my move, we’ve had to sort through her stuff – the stuff we didn’t have the strength to deal with at the time so we hid it in boxes and threw it in the basement to deal with later.  The process is stirring up old emotions and ripping scabs off healing wounds.  What do we do with all of this stuff- the only tangible remnants of my baby sister?  The smell of stale Camel cigarettes rising from each opened box takes me back to her and I feel pathetic for wanting to bottle that up because her smell is gone.  A shower curtain, her leather jacket, her music, her cigarettes among miscellaneous artifacts-that’s all that’s left of her.

In my weaker moments when I’m overwhelmed with trying to afford my new life, I remember when my sister had to move. She asked me to move in with her as I was looking for a place too.  Just a few months earlier she had been in a huge fight with her boyfriend and she broke everything he owned, from his glasses to his Nintendo.  I told her no.  Less than a year later she killed herself, due in part to financial strain and not being able to pay her bills.  What if I had moved in with her? For fuck’s sake, I’m her big sister, I was supposed to help take care of her and I didn’t when she needed me most.

And that trigger?  When it’s pushed my body starts to crumble under the weight of the pain and guilt. And then I go numb.

It’s mornings like this- waking up aching for her that makes me realize what I would give for the chance to hug her one more time, to press my nose into her hair and breathe her in.  To hear her voice and her laughter.

God I miss her.

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