October 3rd~~
I just published my last two columns for the Gazette., and really did it because I know my brother and sister read it faithfully every week, even (imagine that!) look forward to it.
Guess a few other people that love me read it, too. It led me to think about my life, and how tightly my brother and sisters and I are bonded.
Bonded in pain and tragedy, that's true. Bonded in love, also true. Neither of those things are portrayed to the world, if you were to see a photograph of the four of us together...all you would see is well dressed, smiling, group of people, obviously enjoying each other's company.
You wouldn't see my older sister, picking out our mother's casket at 17. You wouldn't see her the epitome of strength until she got to the viewing of her body, when she fainted dead away.
You wouldn't see my little sister, beating her head senselessly against the steps leading upstairs, as she wept when our father died. Nor would you see me, only 11, rocking her, telling her it would be okay.
You wouldn't see our brother, the baby, fiercely protected by his big sisters, determined to be his mother, father, and any other damn thing he needed, as a baby orphaned by age 7.
You wouldn't see a home ripped apart, with vulturistic relatives "shopping" our parent's belongings, while we were delegated to a home far away, in a hostile land.
Why do i bring these things up? I guess it's time to exhume the dead. Perform an autopsy. Because sure as I am standing here, the dead are still alive, to me.
Today I weep. I am the emotional one, I cry for us all. My tears don't pay the bills, they don't make me successful, they keep me balanced precariously on the edge of victimhood and martrydom...both empty platforms to live on.
But they have given me the ability to write...write what other's who are more sensible, more successful, will not reveal, because it costs too much.
Guess today, I just weep. I long for the security of my father's arms, the love in my mother's eyes. All four of us have figured out how to find that security, find that love. Today, though, I can't find either...but, there is always tomorrow. Later.