The eve of Liza's birthday (05/23/2022)
Is this even real?
Am I dreaming?
Can I wake up now?
This doesn't make sense.
There's this energy sizzling just beneath my skin- this low buzzing that's constantly pushing me almost to the point of overwhelm, but then it draws back just in time. I can't fully process but I'm nowhere near relaxed. I want to reach for people- bring them in, hug them close. But I also want to shut everyone out- because no one understands and no one is good enough and no one can help me.
This world shouldn't exist without her. How can the clocks keep ticking?
the world keep turning?
the sun keep rising?
When she is GONE?
Ceased to exist?
Nowhere to be found?
She's dust and wind and air. She's everywhere but nowhere. She's every part of who I am but so far out of my reach.
I want her healthy and I want her here. I want to continue hearing her perspective on things, translating things in my life in ways I know she'll find interesting.
I could always understand her speech best- even better than Mom usually. She almost never had to repeat herself for me. Probably because I grew up hearing her as much as I heard anyone else. She was the soundtrack of my childhood. Me and her. Me and Liza. I'm proud of this. Proud that I knew her so well; in some ways, better than anyone.
Oh sweet Liza-
How will you come back to me?
As a cardinal?
A rainbow?
A yellow flower?
When will you come back to me?
today?
tomorrow?
next year?
I wish I saw you in the cardinals and the butterflies and the sunshine. I wish I saw you every day, but most of the time all I can feel is your absence- the gaping hole you left behind when you were ripped from our lives.
Your absence is everything
How can a lack of something be everything?
Two years without Liza (2/26/2023)
The two-year mark of Liza's death was particularly challenging because it also fell on the day I moved away from Washington, DC - having to say many tearful goodbyes to dear friends. My grief for my sister and my grief for the life I was leaving behind tangled together, inseparable and confused. Words from 11 pm that day:
Nothing related to Liza feels like enough. I'm not sad enough, I'm not doing enough, there's not enough joy in our memories, I can't remember enough. She deserves more, so much more.
There are no heroics about a two-year death anniversary. At the First, I felt some relief at having survived one year without her. But the second? All that came was the stark realization that all of my February 26ths will be like this for the rest of my life, that there will be no more relief. All there will be is a lack of her.
