Memories

I didn't stand up and share any memories of my cousin at her funeral, but I know what I would have said.

I used to see her at work. I work for her school district as a custodian, and I would sometimes find myself at the high school. Sometimes I would watch her at cheerleading practice in the commons. Sometimes I'd see her walking down the halls with a friend of hers. Once, I caught her hobbling out of a classroom on crutches, having stayed late to study for a French test. She hobbled on crutches a lot, once she got into high school. I may not have seen her very often at school (or otherwise, I'll admit), but half the times I did see her, she was busted up in one way or another.

I always said hello, and we would chat for a little bit. I'd ask her how school was going, or how she hurt herself, and then I'd tell her not to make any messes on her way out. I always found myself proud to see her, wanting to tell people about it. I would turn to my co-workers and say, "That's my cousin," smiling. And whenever she walked away from me, I would hear her say the same thing to her friends.

Maybe it doesn't sound that important. We are cousins, after all, and there's not much point in denying it if we're going to have conversations in the hallway. But I always felt like there are a lot of kids out there who wouldn't want their friends knowing that they were related to the janitor, kids who might be embarrassed or ashamed. And she never was. She sounded every bit as proud to claim me as her cousin as I was to claim her, and I won't ever forget that.

She's also one of the few people who's beaten me at Disney Trivial Pursuit, and I don't think I'll forget that, either.

Sharing without Hearing

I was talking with a co-worker earlier today and the subject came up. It started with talk of songs. She had a particular song that always made her sad because it reminded her of someone she knew who had died. I understood. So many songs remind me of my cousin. It's often hard to escape. I told her as much.

She asked me if my cousin and I were close, and I answered honestly. No, we were not. I started to explain that my family all cared very much about each other, but that we are a large family and it's difficult to be close to everyone. I wanted to explain that it hadn't mattered that I wasn't close to my cousin, that it still struck me harder than I would have expected, that I still grieved and continue to grieve. I wanted her to know that death is impacting, and that I had been impacted.

But she walked away. As though the death meant little if I hadn't been close to the person who had died. As though, "No, we weren't close," was all there was to that story.

It's always been a concern of mine, how deeply I've felt the loss of my cousin. In many ways, I don't feel entitled to it. So many times I feel as though my grief is detracting from the people who are truly in pain, from the people who have felt the loss of someone who made their lives, who warmed them and loved them and was a part of them. I often feel that the extent of my grief is unjustified, which is why I don't really like to talk about it.

I've kept these writings a secret from anyone who knows me. I refuse to create a situation where someone who's hurting worse than I am feels that I'm attempting to gain something here. I don't want any of my family or any of her friends thinking that I only want attention or that I'm being overly dramatic about this trauma for my own purposes. I don't want to open up about how badly I've been hurt by this chain of events only to have someone else confirm that I'm only trying to steal the spotlight.

Which is sort of how I felt when my co-worker walked away from me. "Oh, you weren't close? Okay, I'll move on to a more important conversation then ... "

This was a Good day

I saw flashes of light today. While I was at work, I kept seeing little sparkles of light to my right, that would disappear as soon as I tried to look at them. I could try to explain it away as something strange with the lighting, or glitter on my cheek or any number of other perfectly logical explanations.

But I sat down today and I started writing the story, Her Story, and it has never come easier to me. I'm afraid to jinx it now, and hit another wall, but I feel like she was there, cheering me on and sharing her story with me. I feel like she was giving me answers.

I've felt so good today.

Writing Fiction From Fact

I have this story that I've been wanting to write. It's the story of my cousin's last moments. Just before her truck swerves, she and her passenger are pulled out of the truck and taken to a myriad of places, talking with two angels about their future plans, their families, their relationship with each other before it's revealed to them that one of them will die. As the driver, it is up to my cousin to take the knowledge that she has just gleaned and make the decision. Turning the wheel an inch or two one way or the other determines where the truck will hit the tree. It determines who takes the most impact. It determines who gets to survive the coming accident. When they're back in the car, without knowing why, she turns the wheel the tiniest bit to the right, sparing her friend and sacrificing herself. And there's a moment, before the collision, when she remembers the time with the angels, remembers her decision, and smiles just a little.

I don't know how many times I've opened the document to try and write this story. I must have started it twenty times. I can't seem to get it quite right, and I can't seem to move forward with it until I do. I'm stuck somewhere at the beginning without being able to move on. Is there a metaphor in that somewhere?

I don't know why I feel the urge to write this story. I don't know why I feel like I need it so badly. And maybe I'm still too close to it, too close to the tragedy and the pain to be able to voice the peace that this story contains. I don't know. But it's the most frustrating case of writer's block I've ever had.

Seraph

A strange thing has happened since my cousin died.

I've mentioned before that she and I were not particularly close. We have a very large family (our parents make up a part of six children, all of whom have children of their own, half of which have been divorced and remarried to someone who previously had children, so there's upwards of fifty of us). We always see the family on the holidays, and certain other special occasions. Sometimes, it's just a barbecue in the summertime, but we see each other. We visit. We know the basics about each other -- this one plays football, that one's a cheerleader, those two are musicians, etc. And since we've been around each other for all our lives, we can easily have conversations and be around each other.

That does not guarantee a closeness. I've learned more about my cousin since she died than I ever knew about her while she lived. This makes me sad. More than sad. It makes me regretful, which is something that I rarely am. And perhaps that explains the strange thing.

Over the last couple of months, my cousin has turned into a guiding star for me. When I'm upset, or I feel lost, or I just can't handle the stress of the life I'm living, I find myself turning to her. I turn to her, in my mind, and I say, "What am I supposed to do now?" I ask her for her guidance and I try to take the knowledge that I have of her and figure out what she would say to me. A lot of times, when I feel myself breaking, I'll see a picture of her. It's rarely the same picture, it's always at a random moment, but something in that photo gives me the answer I'm looking for. Something shining in that still of her face says, "Don't give up on your dreams," or, "Smile," or, "Just give 'em some attitude," and it's always exactly right.

I feel that this is purposeful. I feel that it's intentional. I feel that this is a gift given to me from her, from the world. It doesn't feel odd and it doesn't feel selfish. It feels right that she would be the one to lead me to the right path, that she would help become the person that I long to be. When I need a hand to hold, it seems like she's right there holding it. Maybe it doesn't sound right, maybe it sounds like I'm glad she's dead, but I'm so thankful to have her beside me. I'm so incredibly thankful to not have to feel completely alone.

I know she made people feel like that when she was alive. I know that everyone who was close to her felt that she did that for them. And I just hate that I couldn't have had her living comfort, too.

I hope that the rest of them know she's there. I hope that they feel her, holding their hands when they're lost, touching their shoulders when they cry. Because I know they're lost. And I know they cry. And I know she's there for them.

Tomorrow

I think what I hate the most right now is that I didn't realize how important she was while she was alive. I had no idea that she meant this much, that it would hurt so badly that she was gone. And even though this tragedy has brought so many of us together, it makes me wonder. It makes me wonder how many others there are -- how many other people do I take for granted? How many others in my life would I miss this much? Or more? How many times a day do I say, "Next time ..."

The last time I saw her, I said, "Next time, we'll actually get to talk," as I walked out the door after only a quick hello. How often does that happen? And how many people have been taught such a difficult lesson? That sometimes, there isn't a next time. Sometimes, what we're left with today is all that we're left with.

And I just ... I just never could have seen this coming.

The Story

My cousin was on her way back to school after lunch one Friday afternoon. She was in a special program at her high school, the Natural Resources Academy, where they focused on different careers in the natural world. She wanted to work with the Orcas in SeaWorld. She was focused, and driven, so specializing in something in high school made a lot of sense for her. They had gone on a field trip that morning, out to the coast. How a whole class of students made a field trip to the coast and back in one morning, I'll never know.

She was driving her truck, one of her best friends in the seat next to her. It was a sunny day. The drive to get back to NRA goes down a windy back-woods road. My cousin was always a safe driver -- she was the kind of kid who you had to prod to get to go the posted speed. Slow and cautious. She probably got made fun of, but I doubt she ever cared.

They were about halfway there. Going around a left curve, a wall of rocks to her right and a slight ledge to her left, she drifted. Her tire tracks barely cross over the white line in her lane. She over-corrected, probably jerked the wheel thinking, 'Oh, crap,' and slammed on her breaks at the same time. The combination made her lose control of the truck. She veered too hard to the left. The truck literally flew over the embankment. Airborne for about twenty feet, the front driver side of the truck slammed into the trunk of a tree. The force of the hit sent the vehicle spinning clockwise, knocking the driver's side of the truck into another tree. The truck continued to spin and corkscrew, landing 180 degrees and upside down from where it had started.

The other girl, her friend, was seriously injured. She had some organs punctured, I believe, and some spine damage. She pulled through, which is a miracle. She has a lot of work ahead of her, probably years of physical therapy and pain and determination, but she did survive.

My cousin did not. I dont' know what her injuries were. I don't know what exactly killed her. I don't know how long she was alive after the truck crashed. All I know is that she didn't make it.

Later, I got a chance to talk to some of the nieghbors that live right next to the crash site. It turns out, she wasn't the first person to die there. Three others had died over the last ten years, in the exact same spot as my cousin, the most recent just over a year ago. The nieghbors had set up a tally one year, and recorded over 30 accidents in the same spot in less than eight months.

She wasn't speeding. She wasn't driving carelessly around the turns. She wasn't on her phone or texting. She was inexperienced. And the worst thing happened to her. Which is what hurts the most for me. How can someone be so good, so pleasant and doing all the right things, and still have this happen?

This is my comforting thought: She would have chosen this. If she had had a moment, if she had been asked, whether she wanted to die then or live and have her friend die, if she had been given that choice, this is how she would have wanted it. I truly believe that she would have been that giving, that brave. I trust that wherever she is now, whatever she's doing, she looks at this and knows that what happened is right. We can't see it or feel it, we are all left feeling how wrong this is, but I believe that she can now see a bigger picture than we can. And, hopefully, someday that picture will be revealed to the rest of us.

Darker than Black

One of my favorite websites is Six-Word Memoirs. I like to look at them and imagine the stories that go behind other people's lives. I was looking at them today and was struck by this one in particular:

"Is there something darker than black?"

And the thought that I had in response was:

"Yes. It's we're all covered in right now. I believe it's called grief. Most people think of it as gray. I used to think of it as gray, when I would try to picture it. But not now, not now that I've experienced it this closely. This disgusting, filthy pain that surrounds us -- that's darker than black."

I really just want to reach a point where I stop crying every time I see her picture.

So ...

It's hard to be strong when I feel this broken.

I began Speaking

I went to church last Sunday, and it was ... invigorating.

I haven't been to church in a number of years. I go every once in a while on Palm Sunday, because I like playing with the palm fronds and because I know that it makes my mother happy. After turning eighteen, I was old enough to make my own decision about whether or not I wanted to go to church, and I kept going for about a year. I thought of it as a learning experience, not a religious one, and eventually I got tired of waking up in the morning.

I visited a friend of mine last weekend. She's a particularly religious person, I've always known this about her. It didn't really hit home how much so until I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. There were prayers (actual prayers, not just the usual what's-expected-at-a-wedding-prayers) and they took communion and made a point to say that their marriage was not between the two of them. It was not simply blessed by God, but included him. Their marriage was a happy threesome.

Knowing this about her, I've always been surprised when she skips church when I come into town. I don't mind church. I always went with Mom, I've been to other churches. Again, I look at it as an experience to learn more about other people and the way they see the world. But last weekend her husband was speaking. Giving a sermon, sort of, but that's not really what it is in this church. And that's not really how it feels, either. I like her husband, like him a lot. He's always made an effort to be friends with me, knowing that I'm important in her life, and I wanted to be sure to do the same for him.

So, of course I went to hear him speak. That was my only intention, was to hear him speak. I would do all of the other things that you were expected to do in church (except take communion, I haven't done that since I was fifteen or so), like sing and stand and sit and listen attentively.

I was struck. I don't know how else to say it. The burial had only been two days before, and, even though I had left the burial feeling better, my emotions were raw and close to the surface. I can't tell you how many times I was touched by the peace that radiated in that room. When people sang, they were really singing, really feeling the words and notes and what they meant. They said prayers under their breath and improvised during musical interludes. People were dancing and lifting their hands in the air and laying on the ground in rapture.

The way these people trusted in God, trusted in him to make them whole and provide them with answers is something that I have envied in the past. Especially when times are hard. Especially through this death. I've often found myself thinking how much easier it would be if I could trust that there had been a plan, a purpose to this suffering that we are all left with. I've wanted it so badly, to feel comforted by an inability to understand a divine plan, but I can't seem to find it.

I managed to hide the tears I felt during the ceremony, but it wasn't easy. I didn't want anyone there to know my struggle, my pain. I wanted to store it inside and keep it for myself, keep until I could deal with it on my own time in my own way.

The pastor said (in reference to coming forward for communion), "Come forward when it feels right to you. And leave your grievances behind. If you hold a grudge against your neighbor, talk with God and find peace with that. Don't come up holding offense in your heart."

And all I could think about was how the biggest offense I was holding in my heart was with God and the universe for leaving me and my family in this state of permanent grief.



After church, I found myself with a bunch of people that I didn't know. My friend had gone off to do something church-like, and I was left to fend for myself. Out in the parking lot, I found myself talking to a girl that I had possibly met once or twice before. I didn't remember her, didn't remember her name, but she asked me about my tattoos.

I'll often give a general explanation of the tattoos on my wrist. I usually have to explain that my right wrist says "Write" and the left one says "Give." I got "Write" a year ago, to represent that I'm a writer. A few months ago, I knew that I wanted to get the word "Give" but I couldn't decide on a symbol to put behind the word. When my cousin died, I knew that I needed a flower, a flower that had particular meaning that could represent her. I decided on the larkspur, which means beautiful spirit. Having that simple embodiment of her, subtle though it may be, felt like the least that I could do.

I don't typically go into that kind of detail when people ask my newest tattoo. Unless I'm talking to a person who already knows of the death that I've been dealing with, I try not to bring it up. Sometimes, it just feels easier not to have to think about it.

But when this girl asked me about my tattoo, the words just started coming. I don't know why, I couldn't have explained it or shut myself up. For some reason, I felt compelled to speak to this girl, this girl whose name I didn't even know. I explained to her about the accident, about the type of person my cousin was. I told her that we had just had the burial. I talked to her about how hurt the family has been, how hurt I've been. I ended up telling her things that I haven't talked about to anyone.

It just seemed like the right thing to say. Maybe it was to help her. Maybe it was to help me. I don't really know. But I felt like God was speaking to me. Or the universe. Whatever you want to call it. That's about all the explanation I have for it.

All That Remains

I went to the burial. First off, I don't really know what to say about it. There wasn't a service. She wasn't actually buried. My uncle said a few words, his father-in-law said a prayer, everyone gathered around the table her urn was upon and most everyone cried. A few people brought flowers.

I stood at the back of the crowd, looking at the stone urn sitting on the table, and I thought, That's all that remains of her.

But then I realized that it's not. Inside that urn is what is left of her body, scorched and pulverized into ashes and bone. But there is more of her left in this world than the contents of a jar. What remains of my cousin, I realized, was reflected in the faces gathered around that table in the cemetery. In their tears and their memories of her. It was in the seven hundred and fifty people who showed up at her funeral, all crying, all claiming her as their best friend. She left pieces of herself in every kind act, every smile, every moment that changed someone's day, someone's life. She is acutely visible in how close our family has become, how intently we've leaned on each other in the last several weeks, how willing we now are to hug and tell each other we love them. She exists still anytime someone looks at her life, her death, and feels something -- joy, sorrow, laughter, love, anger. She is in the lessons we have learned about life's brevity and the way we choose to act with our knowledge.

What's left of my cousin isn't in a pot in a hole in the ground. What's left of her isn't a headstone or a spot in the corner of a cemetery. The memories that I keep of her, the way I've been affected by her and this tragedy, the fact that I'm not the only one who feels this way, that's what remains of her. And that is so much larger, so much more important, than the contents of that urn.

What do we actually bury?

There's a burial on Friday. I'm not sure how I feel about this. I've been doing better with the whole thing. I haven't cried in over a month, and I don't immediately feel my heart drop whenever I think about her. I do think about her, a lot more now than I did when she was alive, a fact that gives me tingles of guilt. I have her pictures everywhere. She comes up in casual conversation. The tattoo on my wrist is dedicated to the type of person she was, and I look at it so many times a day.

Her parents make me nervous now. I don't know how to be around them. I don't want to pretend like nothing happened, like she never existed, go on as though life is as it always was when I know that it isn't. At the same time, I don't feel right mentioning her, bringing her up, talking about her, when I know that it causes them such heartbreak. I can't decide which I think is worse -- hurting them by ignoring her life, or hurting them by remembering her death.

At first, I didn't want to go to the burial. I don't handle pain well. I can manage my own just fine, especially when I have some time alone to process it and let it trickle through me. But the pain of others is difficult to bear. It infests my spirit, nibbling away at my insides. I've never had an easy time being around the hurting, dying, disturbed of the world. I want to absorb it and ease them of their suffering. In some ways, I succeed at this and that's a problem. The task is not to intake others pain, but to help them dispose of their burden in other ways. Without knowing what to do, what to say, how to act, I don't know how to do this for my aunt and uncle. Which is why I was unsure about the burial.

But I realized that, afraid as I am of the pain of others, I want to go. I want to be there for me. I couldn't look at her body, didn't want to remember her that way, but it'll help to have one final goodbye. I'm hoping that it will help me move past this, gain some sense of closure. I'm not entirely sure it will make any difference. I'm not entirely sure that anything will make a difference.

This is, by far, the strangest and most horrendous experience I've ever gone through.

Shit. I had gone a month without crying. Count starts over.

That Day

I still cry. I know that's not unusual. It's been almost a month and I still find myself with wet eyes. I didn't expect to cry at all. I actually first heard about the incident at work. I work in a school district, at a school she used to attend, and I was talking to the teachers when I got in.

"Two former students were in a car accident today and one of them died," I was told. I thought, Gee, that sucks. It didn't cross my mind that I knew kids who went to school here, that I had had family that went to school here. It's never expected that it might be someone you knew.

But her statement got me thinking about death. I've known people who died before. My grandfathers, but they were old and had been sick for years. They'd lived their lives and everyone saw it coming. It was sad, but I knew that whatever had happened to them was better than the pain they had been living in. A boy younger than me died, too. I went to school with him. I had directed a show he was in. He was a lot of fun. Drove me absolutely crazy most of the time, but I liked him. Hit by a train. Sudden, unexpected, horrific death. And that didn't really bother me, either. He should have been paying more attention. It was a terrible tragedy, and he was the one who could have prevented it. I think I took comfort in that.

I had felt death before. And it hadn't bothered me very much. I think I cried once for each of them because I felt that I was supposed to. I didn't do it because I was so upset, or it hurt so badly. I did it out of obligation. So, I reasoned, I just didn't react to death the way other people do. Death was okay with me, I figured. Like a permanent move to Europe.

I was in shock when my aunt found me and told me the news. Really? Are you sure? That can't be. Really? She drove me home from work. I didn't know what to do with myself. Mom was with grandma and Dad was I don't even know where. The house was empty. I didn't know if I should be calling people or going somewhere or doing something. I kept roaming the house, upstairs and downstairs, from the kitchen to my bedroom to the living room and back to the kitchen again, hoping that each time I went somewhere else I would figure out how I was supposed to act.

I sat on the porch. It was sunny. The neighbor kids were out playing in their yard. I set my head on my knees and I cried. For her, for her family, for her friends, for everyone who loved her, for all those that would be completely heartbroken to not have her anymore.

And honestly, that was everyone. I cried for everyone, knowing that that was the only thing I could do.

This is How it Is

My cousin passed away three weeks ago.

God. I keep saying that, even though I don't mean to. Passed. What a ridiculous phrase. Passed on what? Life? Like she just woke up that morning and said, "You know what? I think I'll pass on living today. Maybe tomorrow." Fucking ridiculous. All the euphemisms for death are. The only one I like is "kicked the bucket." It sounds feisty. It sounds like a person who didn't go quietly, who wanted to stay. Someone who had other ideas and plans, things to do besides dying and didn't really appreciate being taken from those things. That sounds a lot like her. She was feisty, too.

She was an amazing person. And that's not just one of those things where everyone starts saying nice things about a person once they've died, like it's more respectful to lie about who that person was. This isn't respectful lies. She was just an amazing person. She had values and morals, and she stuck to them. She knew what she wanted out of life, what she wanted to do, who she wanted to be, and she worked towards that. You couldn't pressure her into anything. She stuck to her guns. She was friends with everybody. Just about anyone you talk to would say, "She was my best friend." She had that teenage girl I-know-everything attitude that could drive you crazy, but she was usually right. She was outside beautiful, too, always smiling and laughing. She was destined for great things.

At least, that's what we all thought. Now no one knows what to think. In so many ways, I'm so sick of thinking, and yet I can't stop myself. I can't stop myself from remembering who she was, how she was, thinking of the last time I saw her, and wondering what her death was like.

Was she scared? She must have been, but for some reason I don't think she was. Maybe that's only my mind trying to comfort me, I don't know. But I don't think she was scared. I think she understood. I think she understood the purpose in that moment, that she could see the whole plan and accept it for what it was. I think the instant before her truck slammed into that tree, when she was airborne, flying, she had the answers that we all long for. She saw how complete her life was. She saw what we are left imagining, hoping, unable to understand.

This is what I believe. This is what I have to believe. I might go crazy if I didn't.

How to do this ...

Is there a polite way to ask people who are in pain to talk to you about their pain?

I want answers. No, that's not accurate. I need answers. I need information in order to feel sane. There's a lack of information here, a lack of knowledge. When I'm angry or upset, I'll start to organize things. I'll clean my room or sort through my mail or file away all of my papers. The act of physically organizing forces my brain to put itself into order. But there's no amount of organizing that will put this into order until I've gleaned all of the information that I can.

I want to ask. I want to call, e-mail, get in touch however I can with anyone who can give me the details that I need.

This story ... This story has to be accurate. I'm having the hardest time writing it, getting through it, because I know that the fact's aren't right. I need to know more about the other girl. But I can't very well barge in on her family and say, "Hey, I know you're struggling and you have no idea who I am, but I'd really like it if you could tell me everything about your daughter so that I can properly write her into my story." Somehow, I don't think that will go over well. I need more details about the accident itself. What do the police theorize? Could it have happened the way I imagine it did? What about the physics of it? Can I get numbers on weight and force and put it all into a proper mathematical equation?

There's only one part of this story that I know about for sure, and even that's not as clear as I would like it to be. She was my cousin, but she wasn't my best friend. I've known her since she was born, but I don't think I ever really knew her. I loved her and I'm so lost and grieving right now, but I feel guilty about that.

I need this story and this information, but I don't know how to do it. I don't feel like I'm close enough to just ask. I don't think there's enough tact in the world that can phrase my questions without causing more pain. And would it help them? Or hurt them more? If I asked, I mean. If I asked them to talk about their pain, knowing that I'm hardly anyone and barely worthy of helping them unburden themselves. I'm at such a loss and I have nothing to do to calm myself.

If I get something wrong, I won't be able to accept it. Shit.