No glitter

The woman I looked up to was always a few steps ahead in life. She was three years older than me, and in childhood that might as well meant a decade. Now it’s been two decades since the last time I saw her but in grieving time that could just be last week.

The disbelief is still lingering, there’s anger that out of all people this happened to her. Her voice has become an echo of an echo, but I still feel how it sounds to be spoken to by her. Her face is vivid and in full colour, as are her mannerisms, her quivering lip when she concentrated. How she sat at the desk behind the computer in the living room. How I scooched next to her with a dining room table and how we chatted with online friends. Friendships that started online, when it was fairly new in the Myspace-era. I wanted to be one of those friends, to be as close to her as they were. Yet she was always just out of reach, even when I sat next to her. Even when we shared our ache on feeling as if we didn’t really belong, the insecurities we had about being poor, or our curiosity on being with a girl.

On paper we were cousins from our mother’s side, but she felt like my big sister. I am an only child, so I’ll never know how it feels to have or be someone’s sister. That being said, within our grand family my mother and her two sisters were so close-knit that they spend every day together. I remember always being at one of my two aunts, before school, after school and on weekends. So my (in total) six cousins have felt like my siblings, or what I envisioned it would feel like to have siblings. Sometimes I despised them, but I could never be without them. They know me and all of me like no-one else ever could. They know-know my parents, their best parts and their flaws. And whatever I might grow into, to them I will always be just me. To this day they feel like my home outside home.

I was younger so I was the subordinate in playtime. She had the vision and I would play along no questions asked. I was too happy, that I was even invited to play, to care. Sometimes I would summon up all my courage and suggest something, but my ideas were too childish of course. They did not fit the vibe. These were the rules of our bond. I was the younger one, if I wanted to be included I had to play my part.

When she entered high school and grew into puberty I would sometimes sleepover and when I came home, I wanted to try big girl things. Wearing thongs, underwear I had never understood, but now I was in the know because of her.

For me those sleepovers were the best thing that could happen on a weekend. The fact that I was invited to ride along in big girlhood. I CANNOT. The crazy stuff I would witness and hear about cute boys and the girls that wanted their attention. The juicy gossip was…

Have you ever seen the cultfilms: Thirteen or KIDS? Well I feel that sums it up.

I remember being 13 while she was 15 at that time. It must have been after my birthday and before hers. Sometime in summer. We were at my grandmothers house. The one place where I felt happiest and most at home. She told me about high school crushes, teaching me all I wanted to know about first loves and French kisses. She provided all intel and packed me with all the do’s and don’ts to conquer the social maze in which a teenage girl can get lost in.

Then, it suddenly stopped. Whenever I wanted to sleep over, she sighed over the fact that she had to babysit on her free time. I was not fitting the vibe anymore. So we drifted apart. She wouldn't come over to our grandmothers house as much, I’d see her less and less at her place. She was busy being a teenager, living and experiencing life. I was devastated, and my ego got stumped. Why the f. did she find me a bore? I was cool as hell. After I turned 16 we were naturally and really slowly coming together again. We were both in relationships, I was in high school making big plans for a successful future as an entrepreneur (look how well that turned out). She was. That's the only way I know how to finish that sentence now. She was becoming into her own. Maturing, figuring out life, love and her place in it. She was mid sentence when some devil disguised as human burned the unwritten pages of her awaited life story.

Reality imitated a badly written horror story. There is no word for what was done to her. Murder feels too clean. Too ordinary. What happened to her deserves a word that doesn't exist yet. I won’t go into details for this one, but she was burned alive. On purpose. Read that again. It was not a house that was set on fire where she was unfortunately residing. She did not get shot, stabbed or beaten to death before her body met fire. She was set on fire while she was living, breathing and witnessing the most evil act as the most beautiful and pure woman she was.

Ethically so, I know there is no hierarchy in death or grief. But in reality I feel this death and this grief surpasses all levels. Especially for my aunt, late uncle and her brothers. We have many explanations for grief, for how it fades, according to some. How it always stays, according to the ones who have actually lost someone really close, to soon.

There is beautiful grief, this is when a person dies in a respectable or comprehensive manner. After a fulfilling life. It is heartbreak that comes after an acceptable death. I think I experience this grief with the death of my grandmother and my father. Both were ready to leave this earthly plane. Their bodies weren’t working as they once could. They couldn't live life like they used or wanted to anymore and their passing is a bittersweet relief for them.

Just because it is an acceptable death doesn't mean it doesn't sting. This is the grief that is like glitter. ‘It clings to everything. Hides in corners. Slips into your socks. Appears on your fingertips when you're reaching for a glass of water, or brushing your hair before bed. It settles in places no one else can see. And sometimes, it sparkles. Sometimes, it doesn't.’

Ugly grief is when someone’s death is unacceptable. Innocent civilians or children losing their lives in a war. The death of a child, either in an accident or by illness. Dying before your parents do feels unjust. Or when someone is killed by the hands of a monster. It weighs even harder if the deed is purposely cruel and painful. This grief slams a hole in your gut, that little space where we keep home. After such a gut punch home is forever dismantled and deformed. The size of the wound varies from what your relation is to the one you lost and your age when it happened. The younger you are how smaller your body, how bigger the hole. The closer the relation how bigger their part in your life is, how bigger the hole.

This wound can never be filled, glued or put together. Of course you will always try. Maybe with substances, distractions and with other people. I will always find bits and pieces of her in other people. Yet that gaping hole stays as it is and where it is. The only thing that does change is that you do grow, time passes and that big empty will become a graveyard.

If you tend to it you can make it a beautiful shrine. Invest in a headstone. It is the first thing you see. Maybe your fondest memory of them. Then put fresh flowers near the aching emptiness on special days. In other words, write a poem to, or about them, make a painting, host a dinner or go on a trip in their honor. If you don’t, the hole will stay the same, but with weeds growing, and insects will make it a home. And if you pass it, which you will from time to time, since it is on your route every time you want to bring something or someone new into your home. If it’s unkept it will make you sadder, because you’ll feel guilt on top of the grief.

Soon it will mark 20 years since her death. An anniversary I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. This also the year she should’ve turned 40. An anniversary I wished she could’ve lived to see. On both days I will tend to the home within me. The graveyard I carry feels painful, but is decorated with the most precious things I can gather. The last thing I added, other than this writing piece, is a memory of my last trip to Paris. On a window there was a branding display for the new Super Mario Galaxy movie. A game we used to play as kids on her Nintendo and later Nintendo 64. In the display was written ‘Infinity’ amongst images of stars that went from little to big. ’Oh, M. there you are. I still miss you so much’ I thought to myself. 

I got a tattoo at seventeen after she died. On my wrist it says infinity, with two stars, each on the other side. As a promise from me to her that we/she (our bond) would be forever. One star is little (it’s me) and one is bigger and higher up that’s hers.

It’s not that I believe she was sending me a message, but seeing infinity and the stars made me think of her. And I thanked her for showing up in my life as I was living a defining moment with my kids in Paris. Reminding me that she will always be, if I need her to, 3 years ahead of me.

Love always,

Daphny