I woke up at 8 am today, took a shower, brushed my teeth, ate Shredded Wheat with a sprinkle of Lucky Charms, moved some boxes around our new place, then went back to sleep at about 11 am.
In my slumber, I had a dream in which I was visiting my mom for the 40 day anniversary of Alice's death, and I was in my childhood bedroom getting dressed. While I was deciding what shirt to wear, a guy friend of Alice's came to pay his respects to my mom, and she was showing him Alice's bedroom. While they passed by my room, I looked outside and saw a young girl across the street wave to me, as if to embarrass me for being shirtless. I quickly decided to wear a rust colored sweater my mom had made, one I did not bring with me; rather, it had stayed in Cerritos for a few years.
As I was pulling the pullover over my head, I had a quick one-two thought: 1. As soon as I went to see who came over, Alice would give me grief for wearing this sweater. I dreaded that she would call me on putting on something so blatantly to please my mother, when I likely had no intention of wearing it, then 2. "wait! is Alice here?" and ran to my mom.
Of course, Alice wasn't there, and from my momentary excited hopefulness, came crashing down to the present reality. I unabashedly balled my eyes out at Alice's certain absence, felt guilty for dreading her reaction to my sweater, and willed that I could take back my guilt in exchange for having my sister back.
It was the kind of crying that is wholly for Alice. The kind of crying that takes all my might, tenses me in my core, and while I feel pure horror in these moments, I get a wisp of possibility that in some realm I may be connecting with Alice. Mostly, though, it just hurts to grieve and sob like that.
I feel it's necessary to do, if I'm going to keep living. Interestingly enough, when I cry like that, I don't feel like eating for a while. Like shedding tears nourishes me.
1 comment:
That was deep, Haig.
Sook
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