Halloween

When I was 9 and my sister was 12, we made the bold decision to craft The Haunted House of All Ages in our 250-square-foot living room and the 10-x-3.5-foot hallway that ran down the center of our second floor flat. It would be just for our own enjoyment: for us to build, experience and deconstruct in the sweet solace of flat and of our sisterhood. And we were democratic about the whole affair: She would adorn the front room with all manner of Halloween horror for me to walk through, and I the hallway for her.

So we began to extract a variety of items to support us in these efforts: a thickly laminated medical poster of organs, a tape recorder and radio, baby dolls, sheets and blankets, clothing and shoes, a flashlight, you know, the usual. But I just had to take things a step further. I boiled a pot of noodles and cooled them then put them on a stool in the hallway. That way, when I immersed my sister’s hand in them, she would surely think they were brains.

And she did…kinda.

Shock and Silence

Whatever she thought they were, she retracted her hand so quickly that my mother’s FAVORITE Pyrex pot fell to the floor and broke in pieces. We stood quietly in shock and looked at the remnants of the pot on the floor that my mother used to boil spaghetti noodles and macaroni noodles and to cook rice and other yummy things at least 3 times a week- almost like a brief moment of silence to acknowledge its passing from this world to the next.

And then we cracked up laughing, disposed of the pieces, deconstructed the haunted house and went about our business…until that fateful day later in the week when mommy was ranting in the kitchen about not being able to find her pot.

Once again, we giggled, this time more quietly, and the unfortunate fate of that pot remained between us.

School Suspension

During her 3rd year of high school, my sister got suspended for two weeks after a string of disciplinary issues starting her freshman year. She knew that if mommy found out, there would be smoke in the city. So, she devised a plan to “leave for and return from school” every day. Only in reality, she’d leave the house, have me let her back in. Then she’d spend the day watching TV from a small nook between the couch and the radiator, fitted with a blanket, the TV remote control, lunch, snacks and juice boxes. And then, after I returned home from school, she’d put her coat back on, throw her book back over her shoulder, walk down the stairs and out of the door only to turn around and shuffle right back through the same door after I had “opened” it for her.

My job was, of course, to let her in and out each day because I left after her and returned before her for school. I also helped get her nook set up, as needed, so that she would only have to leave it to go to the bathroom. With my grandmother bustling around at home all day in the flat right below ours, my sister could not chance being heard walking around our old, creaky floors upstairs. My grandmother would be up there on the first creak, and the jig would be up!

And my sister went on to graduate from high school without mommy ever finding out. In fact, mommy did not find out until she was packing up to move away from the home she raised us in. There she discovered the suspension notice on the floor of my sister’s closet buried under some long-undisturbed box or something.

 Alone with the Memories

My sister died on August 12, 2020, at the age of 43. She had a heart infection that quietly yet unrelentingly ravaged her body over the course of several months, strengthened by my sister’s bout with COVID towards the end. She was the only sibling I had to share these and so many other memories with. And she was the only one with whom I could jokingly swap yo-mama jokes. She was the only one who could make comunuchesay (a word we made up to mean lots of bubbles) in the bathtub with me on our towels. She is the only one who knew the “Glazed Donut” song that we would sing as we made our lunches together at night for the next day.

I am now alone in all of our memories.

Grief has not only meant that I can no longer hug her and call her and visit her in the present or future. It also means that I no longer have anyone to reminisce with on a big chunk of the most special and profound events of my upbringing. I no longer have anyone with whom I can conjure the details of things only we have experienced together. And I no longer have a person to really make fun of my mother with. I am alone in so many inside-jokes.

I am learning how to be without my sister in life as I look ahead but also how to be alone within our memories.

Read more by Stacey on Open to Hope: Evolving My Perspective on Grief – Open to Hope