A L L Y

I do not know if this is normal, but then again, I have to think there is no correct way to feel or a timeline I should be following. One of the hardest things about the whole situation is I spent years sitting with people as they lost their loves ones. Being a social worker in a medical setting was something that caused me to become disconnected to death. I would sit with families as they removed their loved ones off life support, and although I struggled with it initially, sadly it become automatic, that is until you were gone.

I remember not being able to sleep that night, and for whatever reason I turned on an old lab top that sat in my childhood bedroom, and began scrolling through photos. They were all of you and me. They mostly consisted of our summers together in that small beach town we used to disappear to. Our hair was blonder, and our skin sun kissed. You were always happy and so it was not surprising to see you smiling. I remember looking at a picture of you and I, and I didn’t recognize myself. My eyes were bluer than I had seen them in a long time, and my smile seemed effortless.

Our relationship was something out of a classic novel or timeless movie. Although we were cousins we shared the same last name and so we often claimed to be sisters. No one ever questioned this because we had the same hair and eye color. Yet, I was tall and you were short, but we balanced each other out.

Time always seemed to get away from us though, and our summer routine of morning coffee and days at the beach followed by numerous outfit changes, dinners on the deck and fun cocktails never resulted in boredom.

You were kinder than anyone I know and I believe we fixed each other. You had had a brain tumor years ago, and although I did not fully understand at the time I stayed with you. You had a bald spot from surgery and so I helped you tie a bandanna on your head. You could no longer see out of one eye so I made sure to see for both of us. When it came time to drive you were told you couldn’t, so I made my passenger seat yours. I drove and you found the perfect song on the radio. You would sing to me and I would pretend I knew where we were going.

Yet, despite the fact I could drive, and reach things your little body couldn’t get to, you did more for me than I could have asked for. Some of the things you did I didn’t realize until you were gone, and so I never got to say thank you. You helped me to smile after days of crying and you listened when no one else did. You made life seem worthwhile.

There are times I still cry when I think about all of this. When I think about the morning I was told you went to sleep and never woke up. There are times my heart still physically hurts and I have to stop for a second and breathe. There are times I still close my eyes and try and hear your voice.

But you are gone now and there is nothing anyone can say that makes it okay. I still talk to you and have to think you are somewhere watching over me. I have to think you have a part in the way my life is turning out, because I was told I might never be able to be a mother, and then within weeks I was pregnant with a baby girl. I was told she was healthy and her due date was your birthday.

I have to think after having given this baby girl your name as a middle name, she will be kind the way you were, she will laugh the way you did. And at night when the clock is turning rapidly and she won’t sleep, I often ask for your help and I don’t know if it’s because talking to you makes my body calm, or if you are somehow helping but that sweet baby often closes her eyes.

And its times like this when the calendar indicates its officially summer that I long for you. It is times like this my heart starts to hurt again, but I know we will see each other again one day, so I am not sorry I did not get to say goodbye, or goodnight, because I know we will listen to the radio again someday, and we will listen only to the sweetest song.