A friend asked to see a photo of me as a child. Scrolling through shots I'd captured from my mom's albums, I came across this.
Alice is holding me so close, her arm wrapped around me like the big sister she was. We're both reveling in rubbing our noses with each other.
I don't remember the picture being taken. I must be about four years old. It looks like we're at Mesrobian, even though I'm not wearing a uniform. It may have been a "free dress" day? My mom crocheted our sweaters, almost identical except for the red stitching on Alice's.
I keep staring at this intimate moment. I'd never really appreciated that Alice and I had had it.
"Do you like shisha?" texted Alice's friend Sjoekje. In California for L's spring break, I was driving to Sjoekje's house, super-excited for a nighttime catch-up.
"I don't know what shisha is?" I tapped back at a stoplight.
"Hookah."
"Oh! I tried that in Armenia," I wrote. "Apple flavor."
"Double apple OK?" read my phone screen. "Also have white peach. Putting coals on now."
White peach smoke sounded right up Alice's alley. So did "double" apple. Why would she settle for single apple?
Sjoekje had instructed me to come inside when I arrived, because her friends would be rehearsing for a gig, and she wouldn't hear me knocking.
Doing as told, I walked up to Sjoekje's quintessential California home: swaying palm trees in the front, red terracotta roof, 3-car garage. I walked inside. When she turned to see me, we opened our arms and gave each other a big, tight hug. One like I'd never felt before. I didn't want to let her go. She wasn't quick to let me go either. We embraced for two solid minutes, a long-ass time compared to your typical bear squeeze. In her, I could feel Alice's essence. I wanted that feeling forever. I heard Sjoekje sniffle, and I tried not to whimper too loud. When we finally let go, we both had wet cheeks. Like I'd said once about Iris, seemed like Sjoekje and I were Alice for each other.
Soon Vicki appeared and the party started. That white peach smoke smelled delicious! So did the apple. Er, double apple.
In the photo above, there's space on the couch to the left of Vicki. That's room for Alice, whose spirit kept the festivities going well past midnight.
That early morning ten years ago remains the darkest moment of my life. At 2:45am, the phone rang. Peter answered it. “It's your dad. Alice has been in a car accident,” he relayed. “And died.”
I shot up from bed. My chest went numb, as if to protect my insides from my shattering heart. I wanted to jump out of the window, to join her, but we lived in a second floor apartment.
I couldn't handle myself, I didn't know what to do. After talking to my mom, I called my therapist at 4 in the morning. I told her I wanted to jump out of the window. She said don't jump. I said I wanted to go outside. She said that doesn't sound like a good idea, it's very late. She suggested I drink some herbal tea. We scheduled a 7:00AM appointment. At the end of that sessions, she said I could expect the next several weeks to be "bumpy." I'd never heard more prescient words.
I recount these details because I don't want to forget that I've survived the greatest pain.
I've been dreaming of Alice, but she hasn't appeared in them. She's present, but invisible. It makes me sad when I'm awake, like she's getting more distant from me.
In one dream I'm walking around Barnard College. I see Alice's Whitney classmates Debbie B and Jana S, and strolling with them is a young woman who looks like Alice in high school. She has longish wavy brownish hair, but her face is different. I hug Debbie, and start bawling that my sister has been transformed, and I can't touch her.
In another, I'm an adult at my mother's house. Alice is getting ready to walk with my mom to an open house in the neighborhood. I need to use the toilet, and see that what we called the "girls bathroom" is not in use. (Why didn't we call one the "boys bathroom"? Because I was the only guy, probably.) I dart into the bathroom and secure the lock. When Alice hears me close the door, from her bedroom she yells, "Not all of us have to go to the open house!"
As in, I could stay home if I'm going to use the restroom, and and she and my mom could go on their own. Typical Alice pushing me away. In the dream I never see her, though. I only hear her voice.
I just couldn’t call this entry Summer of Tears, even though
that’s what it’s turned out to be. Summer of Smiles evokes Alice, doesn't it?
Since June, I’ve had moments where I get
swept up in a recollection of Alice, and hot water starts dripping down my face.
One time, I was sitting with L writing invitations for her
birthday party. Yeah, old school-style American Greetings invites bought ten per pack at the supermarket. We're filling in the blanks for To, When, Where, and “Doo-Wop (That Thing)” by
Lauren Hill comes on Pandora. I sing along a bit, then I can’t take it
anymore. I’m remembering Alice’s copy of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
sitting in her bedroom, how I first heard the song from Alice’s lips while she
crooned to the radio, swaying left and right. I start sobbing. I cover my face, putting my head in
my hands. L’s startled, and I explain that Auntig Alice used to really like The
Fugees and its lead singer. I can’t not think of Alice whenever I hear Ms.
Hill’s voice.
Another time we were watching my favorite 90s music YouTubes, L and I. As we’re watching TLC’s fabulous hip hop motions,
the waterworks erupt on my face again. L turns, and taken aback, says, “what?” "What?" she repeats when I don't have an immediate answer. “She died too
young,” I say, about Lisa Left-Eye Lopes, and my sister. Who cries watching "No Scrubs"? It's the opposite of a sad
video.
Then when we played "Smooth Criminal," I started crying again,
another artist lost too soon. But I'm tickled when my daughter who usually doesn't react explicitly goes "Uh?" when Michael does that badass leaning-forward-until-he-might-fall-but-doesn't move. "That's right," I say.
They say when you cry, you get closer to the ones you've lost.
[I didn't finish this post when I first started writing it 3 years ago. I'll wrap it up for the sake of publishing it at last:]
I recently read The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold because I heard that it was written from the viewpoint of a young woman who had died, and I was interested in reading someone's perspective of, well, heaven. The depiction of that place in the sky seemed realistic, I feel weird saying.
I had to pause and think when Susie, the narrator, said she hadn't heard her mother say her pet name out loud. I haven't heard my mother say Alice's pet name, Tsakoun, out loud since she died, either. Meaning "my youngling," it was a word my mom said to Alice only. She never used it in the third person.
I miss hearing my mom speak it, and hearing Alice reply.
In ten days we'll mark ten years since Alice died, and I can't even believe it. The mildly good news is I've finally stopped eating donuts and more donuts. Like maybe I've shed the sorrow from losing her. I'd been wearing it around my waist all these years. I think it's receded into my bones, along with my memories of her, and will live there for now.
Thinking about this past decade, in a way I'm grateful that Alice's departure from the world prompted me to write. Without her, I could have easily spiraled downward, suffocating from my grief. But Alice's spirit propelled me to chronicle the story of my loss which led to creating a blog about workplace issues then publishing personal pieces in other outlets. I've catalogued my work at chahinian.com. Alice is in every line I've written.
Rereading the lines on this site, I want to edit them so they're sharper, more descriptive. But as I get set to print this blog as a memento, I'm afraid to touch the poor word choice and grammatical errors. It's like my yearning for Alice lives in the sometimes bad sentence structure. I don't want to erase that.
So this online journal will sit, messy. Like me all these summers, struggling to make sense of my sister's death.
For the last ten years I've been looking for Alice, everywhere. From the corner of my eye I'll spot a figure that resembles her, and do a double-take on a woman with pixie hair and a lean frame. Perusing family photo albums, I'm always hoping I'll come across an image I haven't seen before. Sometimes I'll even hear her voice, but if I turn around there's no body.
When the pop punk band blink-182 came out with "California" in August (an album I love love love), I glanced the track list and wondered if I'd spotted her: in "San Diego." Listening to the album start to finish, I finally got to song 13. My ears pricked up. Omg it had Alice written all over it. Check out the chorus:
-----
I can't sleep because what if I dream
of going back to San Diego
We bought a one-way ticket
so we can go see the Cure
and listen to our favorite songs in the parking lot
and think of every person I ever lost
in San Diego
Can't go back to San Diego.
-----
"And think of every person I ever lost in San Diego. Can't go back to San Diego." So true for me. I only lost one person, but she was extra significant to me. Unfortunately I feel repelled by the city Alice moved to and in which she died. I still can't go back there. Other details fit too -- Alice and I went to see the female version of the Cure: Siouxsie and the Banshees. Not in SD but in Orange County. Same difference right? We totally listened to our favorite songs in the parking lot outside the Grove.
Those are the lyrics. Then there's the music. Travis Barker does amazing handiwork on drums, natch. But what sent chills up my spine while tears rolled down my cheeks was the harmonies. Starting near 2:18, the guys are singing background and I swear they're wailing. For my sister. The screen even floods with "A"s right then in the lyric video. Have a watch-listen:
Blink came to town this past weekend. I'd bought a single mosh pit ticket. But I was conflicted because that same afternoon we were throwing a big barbecue for L's 11th birthday. My mom would be traveling 3,000 miles to be there and Sophie'd be coming from far away too.
I'd been feverish the night before the party. The morning of, I doubted I could host a shindig then drive 70 miles to a concert and back. But everyone at home chipped in to make the celebration happen, and I rallied. Heading to the rock show I felt like the luckiest guy in the world: I had my extended family together, and they'd made it possible for me to go to the gig, and look for Alice.
Midway through the set, the guys played "San Diego!" When it came time for their howling, only Matt Skiba sang. Why didn't Mark Hoppus join in? But they sang my jam!
Which I played again back in the parking lot, by myself.
