What You Don't Know
What you don’t know is that I am never okay. This heaviness never leaves me. When I manage to laugh, there is a darkness behind it. When I chat with you, I’m thinking about her. When I walk about and go through my day, there is a gaping hole in my chest, an ache that can never be repaired, an ache that never leaves, an ache that I feel sure will be with me forever.
What you don’t know is that I spend so much of my time looking for pieces of her, collecting memories and items like broken treasures, trying desperately to reassemble them into some semblance of her and yet knowing that they will never add up to all that she was.
What you don’t know is that losing a sibling means that I lost my childhood (the keeper of my secrets and my memories), my present (the person I relied upon for everything from advice to funny memes), and my future (the person who I thought would be with me until the end, who was always the steadiest presence in my life). I lost what was supposed to be the longest relationship of my life. There is no chapter of my life that her loss does not touch.
What you don’t know is that it doesn’t help when you tell me that she is still with me -- that I can carry her in my heart, that I can visit my memories, that I can still have a relationship with her. Please stop telling me these things as though they are news to me. I feel her with me every second of every day. I do my damndest to bring her along with me everywhere I go. I am not worried that she is no longer with me; I am devastated that she is not here. Those are not the same thing.
What you don’t know is that I am never okay. This heaviness never leaves me. I am mustering up everything I have to pay attention to you while you are speaking, to keep one foot in front of the other, even to smile at my children. What you don’t know is that the most basic things have become almost impossible, that every piece of living drains me, that I can’t imagine how I will ever feel light and joyful and energetic again.
What you don’t know is that I don’t want to feel better. You think all that I want is to feel happy again, for life to move forward. You don’t understand that my grief serves a purpose, that sometimes I cling to it for dear life because it’s the place where I can land, the place where she is, the place where I keep her with me.
What doesn’t show is that I know for sure that this will go on for a very long time. That I will never quite be whole again. That I will seem okay when I am not. That I can't believe how well I hide it sometimes, that I can't imagine how no one sees it.
What you don’t know is that she is everywhere. There is no safe haven, nowhere I can go where the pain does not find me. Everything reminds me of her. One day I might be grateful for that, but right now it feels like the world throwing everything I have lost into my face and over and over again, relentlessly, reminding in every moment of every day what I no longer have.
What you don’t know is that sometimes I would just as well not be here. That my exuberance for life has become ambivalence. That life just doesn’t have the same luster for me. That while I wouldn’t do anything to hasten my death, sometimes I hope I don’t live as long as I think I might. I can’t bear thinking about how to make it that long without her. I think about death so differently now.
What you don’t know is that sometimes I hate you just because your world is still turning and mine is so painfully and irreversibly broken.
What you don’t know is that I spend so much of my time looking for pieces of her, collecting memories and items like broken treasures, trying desperately to reassemble them into some semblance of her and yet knowing that they will never add up to all that she was.
What you don’t know is that losing a sibling means that I lost my childhood (the keeper of my secrets and my memories), my present (the person I relied upon for everything from advice to funny memes), and my future (the person who I thought would be with me until the end, who was always the steadiest presence in my life). I lost what was supposed to be the longest relationship of my life. There is no chapter of my life that her loss does not touch.
What you don’t know is that it doesn’t help when you tell me that she is still with me -- that I can carry her in my heart, that I can visit my memories, that I can still have a relationship with her. Please stop telling me these things as though they are news to me. I feel her with me every second of every day. I do my damndest to bring her along with me everywhere I go. I am not worried that she is no longer with me; I am devastated that she is not here. Those are not the same thing.
What you don’t know is that I am never okay. This heaviness never leaves me. I am mustering up everything I have to pay attention to you while you are speaking, to keep one foot in front of the other, even to smile at my children. What you don’t know is that the most basic things have become almost impossible, that every piece of living drains me, that I can’t imagine how I will ever feel light and joyful and energetic again.
What you don’t know is that I don’t want to feel better. You think all that I want is to feel happy again, for life to move forward. You don’t understand that my grief serves a purpose, that sometimes I cling to it for dear life because it’s the place where I can land, the place where she is, the place where I keep her with me.
What doesn’t show is that I know for sure that this will go on for a very long time. That I will never quite be whole again. That I will seem okay when I am not. That I can't believe how well I hide it sometimes, that I can't imagine how no one sees it.
What you don’t know is that she is everywhere. There is no safe haven, nowhere I can go where the pain does not find me. Everything reminds me of her. One day I might be grateful for that, but right now it feels like the world throwing everything I have lost into my face and over and over again, relentlessly, reminding in every moment of every day what I no longer have.
What you don’t know is that sometimes I would just as well not be here. That my exuberance for life has become ambivalence. That life just doesn’t have the same luster for me. That while I wouldn’t do anything to hasten my death, sometimes I hope I don’t live as long as I think I might. I can’t bear thinking about how to make it that long without her. I think about death so differently now.
What you don’t know is that sometimes I hate you just because your world is still turning and mine is so painfully and irreversibly broken.
What you don’t know is that one of my biggest fears is that you will never again speak her name.