Who said a prayer for Alice?

My mom wants an answer to this question.

She talks of how Alice told her that whenever Alice would hear an ambulance go by, she would say a little prayer to herself for the person who was about to receive help.

So my mom wants to know, who said a prayer for Alice as paramedics were rushing to her scene? We already know that I was at my computer wiling away the cyber-hours, oblivious to what had happened to my sister.

The freeway onramp was closed off for three hours. I said to my mom that just as Alice said prayers for people she didn't know, I feel sure that at least one person who witnessed the horror--or at least the related traffic--said a prayer for Alice. I can't know for sure, yet I feel pretty certain.

I panic when I think about this. It's panic with despair I feel, in my stomach. My mom says thinking about this aspect of Alice's death is like getting her hand close to a hot stove. The heat gets too intense at some point and she has to pull her hand away. Because it hurts.

Mostly I'm disappointed in myself. I wish I had felt more cosmically connected to Alice to have known that something was wrong. And so I might have said a prayer, but I didn't. Which hurts too.

A Year and a Half Later

Tomorrow, March 19, 2008 marks exactly a year and a half since Alice died. I count the weeks and months since she's been gone, and the numbers keep getting bigger. Like aging.

Why am I forever tracking the time that has passed? I think it's to know how long it's been since my life was irrevocably transformed. A way to chart in time the distance between now and when she was a living and breathing part of my life.

Alice's birthday is coming up next week. March has become a difficult month to get through.

It's kind of funny.

Now that spring is almost here, I'm realizing something. And maybe it's kind of funny?

Every winter since I moved to New York, I get SAD -- that's Seasonal Affective Disorder. In January and February, when it seems the sun sets as early as 4pm and during the day I'm either indoors or walking in the shadows of buildings, I don't get enough of the healthful benefits of sunlight, and effectively experience a kind of depression. I lack energy, am irritable and typically prefer to spend the day in bed.

Well, since Alice died I haven't noticed my SAD. It's subsumed by the persistent low- to medium-grade depression I feel all the time. Which isn't funny, at least not ha-ha funny. It's f`cked up funny.

Friends have told me it can take 3 to 4 years before I might feel like myself again. So maybe in a couple of years I'll regain my ability to feel SAD in the winter. Ha--