Are You There, Mandy? It's Me, Sarah

Talking to my dead sister on what would be her 49th birthday

Mandy.

I live in the country near a road called River Road. I was walking Silas on it this morning, listening to a podcast where the host was talking about the phrase Memento mori.

Remember you must die.

Today is the day that you were born. Ever year since you’ve died, my mental state declines in August and every year, I wonder why the hell I’m feeling this way. And then I remember that your birthday is upon me. So I give myself grace, forewarn those close to me who may get confused by my fluctuating emotions, and ride it out because I am a body and a mind in this world. For whatever reason, August is more difficult than January, the month you died.

As I was walking on River Road and listening to the podcast where two folks talked about seeing beauty in the crack of a freshly-baked loaf of bread, I felt aligned with aliveness. Not invigorated, but aligned. I thought about you—which is what I wanted to do during this specific walk on a lovely, meandering road near a shallow river—and wondered what you would think of me today.

I’m fast approaching the age when you died (or is it where you died? Is age a time or a place?). I am at the age when/where you were diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. When I thought about you this morning, I wondered if you’d think I wasn’t living enough. This is a thought I often have on my own without the thought of someone else’s opinion, but of course I can’t help but be morbid and approach things from a young, dead person’s perspective.

On a different podcast (I listen to a lot of podcasts—you’d still find me very boring), a host talked about how life goes slowly for those who embrace living and quickly for those who do not. I don’t have an opinion one way or another because I’m not living in other peoples’ timelines. But it’s food for thought. I feel like life is going at just the right pace. I embrace turning 40 next year. I have gray hair at my temples and—you know me—I don’t care. My left knee hurts sometimes but of course it does because my right foot is fucked up and I can stand to lose a lot of weight. It’s all connected.

Remember how as a shy child I hid behind your long legs? How sensitive I was about everything? How inward I was? You watched me move on. I attended college in a different state. You watched me bounce through four boyfriends, the final one—Brian—I married two years after you died. I have never in my life known such a sweet, mild-mannered guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. At this very moment, he’s on our patio bonding with our local Blue Jays. You would roll your eyes at how saccharine we are together. I actually roll my eyes at how saccharine we are. But I’m still sensitive, Mandy. Still inward. Still don’t have very close friends. This is something that has become normal for my generation, it seems. I float about. It’s fine.

A lot of people I know are going to the Outer Banks over the next several weeks. I’m kind of jealous, mostly because they’re going during hurricane season. Even though we grew up going to the Outer Banks, I don’t quite have the desire to go anymore because I’m not like you. I don’t want to bake in the sun all day. But I’m thinking that I might want to go again eventually because adult Sarah will find interesting things to do besides sitting on the beach and going shopping. I’m so glad that we were able to go one last time together, in 2016. Tropical Storm Julia hit us, but it was okay because we all just wanted to be together, the four of us. I remember that the pressure from the storm had me sick for a couple days. Dad and I went to Jockey Ridge to walk the dunes. I took photos of him pretending to die. He was just a dead body on a huge dune in the far distance.

I spend as much time as I can around death. I know that sounds morbid and absurd. But I literally have a dead katydid on the table next to me as I type this. I found it on my porch, likely a “gift” from one of my cat friends. On my walk on River Road yesterday, I came across a dead raccoon lying on their back, their gaping mouth full of pulsating maggots. Their little arms and legs were reaching upward, hands open. I knelt down next to them and held their little hand for a little bit. This reminds me, I think I have a skull or wing or something in one of my fanny packs. I have to go find it. I don’t know if I want to find it? I can’t even remember exactly what it is? You’d get a kick out of how horrible my memory is.

But I don’t forget about you. Here’s something I’ve never told you. There is a condition called Prosopometamorphopsia (PMO—couldn’t they choose a better name?) that causes a person to see facial distortions in others. It has happened with me twice and always with you. Once when you were crying and once when you were dying. I was simply talking with you and suddenly your face distorted and looked horrible as if it were made of putty and squished around. I didn’t respond to what I saw because I’m not one for dramatics and figured that it must have been something off with my perception. And I was right. Strangely, both times that it happened, we were in the room where you inevitably died. Your childhood bedroom. My teenhood bedroom.

Mom and dad sold the house. It went up on the market on mom’s birthday last year and someone is finally buying it. Living in the country now, I can’t fathom living in a house where I can open a window and touch the neighbor’s house. I took one last stroll through the house last year after mom and dad had me paint the front porch. My “bloody” handprints are still on the walls in the basement.

You and I fell out of alignment, Mandy. Or, were we ever aligned? I tried to ignite something between us, yet I still always felt like an only child. We both went our own ways. I listen in awe to a colleague of mine who talks about the things she does with her sister. I find myself thinking I wish I had a sister but then thoughts of you eclipse that. The sisterhood wasn’t quite what it could have been, was it? But remember the Outer Banks? I bought you that hot pink zip-up. We bought matching necklaces. We went to the nearby pier even though it was drizzling from the tropical storm. We watched a surfing competition from the pier. We ate donuts on the balcony of our rented condo where you often sat and colored in adult coloring books. We saw bioluminescence in the crashing ocean waves during our daily night walk on the beach. You were dying, but it was magical. Just the four of us.

Someday soon, I may be privileged enough to be older than you. And then older and older. There are so many stones yet to roll around in my hand. So many chairs to push in. So many commutes to and from work. So many kisses good night. So many confused stares at my smart husband who sometimes complicates simple things. So much art to admire. So many faces to embrace. So much love and patience to give to others in order to balance out all the hate and polarities of our current times. So much frustration to transform into grace. An abundance of woes to experience. So many bad poems to write. So much staring into the night sky. So much soil to move. Only so many memories of you that I must rewind, render, and relive, in your memory.