Today is the three year anniversary of my sister Dawn’s passing. Part of this was written this week, but most is a resurrected Google doc spanning my first year of grief, last edited August 2019.
Yesterday I texted a close friend and my message never went through. I woke to the news that he was found dead in his apartment. If you scroll to the bottom, you’ll see that this week’s paid subscriptions will be donated to two organizations close to both losses.
These fractured, inadequate words are dedicated to anyone touched by the horror of young death. I stand by you in mourning. We have seen too much too soon.
My best friend’s old house phone number was 271-1019. She lived at 111 Huntington Avenue and her birthday was 11/1. We saw 111 all the time and would randomly send it to each other over G-Chat during the work day. Little synchronicities to garnish the drudgery.
My birthday is 7/8/91 and the last four digits of my phone number are 7654. My social security number is also a consecutive count, but that’s the singular line of privacy I’m willing to draw.
One time my ex asked for the Wi-Fi code at my old apartment—one of those funky combos of 15 different numbers and letters. I maybe read it twice before and somehow rattled it off; we stared at each other perplexed. The same thing happened recently with one of my credit cards. Lengthy codes that I make no point to memorize occasionally lodge in my brain and pop out unexpectedly.
For an obvious words person, I’ve always felt connected to numbers, which is probably why 8/27 has weighed on me for weeks. 8/27/2018 was the worst day of my life. I remember it with perfect clarity whether I’m curling 10 lb. dumbbells at the gym, or swaddled in four blankets at 2 AM. 8/27 haunts me like it was always waiting around the corner, ski-masked and trench-coated, ready to pull the rug out from under my otherwise stable life.
I started detailing my sister’s death a few months after it happened. The dismal writing process stretched into summer 2019 when I literally could not take it anymore. I had no words left for an event so visceral and horrific, I closed the Google doc and went on writing about the usual: clothes, parties, men. Easy things. Fun things. Things your “friends” can digest and might still invite you places after reading
I convinced myself that writing about loss only cheapens the experience. This story in particular started to feel cursed, like I might turn to dust if it ever came out. But enough time has passed that I can no longer deny the burden of suppression. Grief hides behind every clenched jaw. The tension headaches that only subside when I finally let myself cry. I thought by the third year, things would get easier. That I’d see wildflowers sway in the gentle breeze and know, in quiet tranquility, that it was her. But I feel like a puppy who’s been waiting 1,095 days by the door for their owner to come home; every set of footsteps that sounds like theirs only reminds you that they never will. You get sick of chasing your tail after a while. You have to dig your way out.
This week, I reopened that bedeviled Google doc. It read “last edited: August 2019.” With minimal editing, I’d like to share it with you:
“I used to walk to my grandmother’s house every day after school. I’d burst through the door without so much as a hello and head straight to her wood-paneled back room to watch Trading Spaces and await my daily bolognese. A short, round Sicilian woman with a furrowed brow and a mound of gray hair, she’d toil in the kitchen over ground beef and garlicky sauce. My eyes were glued to Ty Pennington’s latest renovation as I scarfed down rigatoni like I hadn’t eaten in years. As an Italian of even negligible descent, you come to find life’s most lasting memories often involve pasta.
The bolognese at Davio’s Northern Italian Steakhouse in Center City is nothing to write home about. The restaurant itself is forgettable, which stinks considering it’s grandiose location off of Rittenhouse Row. Guests ride a gold-plated elevator to the second floor of the historic Provident Bank Building, and upon entry, are teased with a swanky bar and an impressive dining area: walls lined with windows that reach a tall ceiling, crisp white tablecloths, and businessmen in expensive suits. I hate places that look better than they are.
There’s really no need to ever dine at Davio’s unless you’re one of those people who love a good steakhouse, in which case I’m already skeptical of your taste. But if you find yourself at the mercy of plans made by another party, I’d suggest the bolognese.
That’s what I was eating around 12:30 PM on August 27, 2018. At that same time about 2.5 hours northwest of Philadelphia, the tumor in my sister’s lung got loose and she choked to death on her own blood. I visited her two days prior to celebrate a 50% reduction of that very tumor. She looked good. For 30ish minutes, a team of first responders took a break between Dunkin Donuts runs to unsuccessfully try reviving her 5-foot, 80-pound, 30-year-old, mother-of-two body.
My blood sugar was low that day. I nursed an Aperol spritz for the duration of our team lunch to calm myself down without looking too eager to drink. It’s hard being the only one in the office still in their 20s. You’re constantly working to dispel any suspicion that your party girl ways haven’t died, even if that suspicion isn’t completely unfounded.
We talked about our successful fiscal year and whether anyone had room for dessert. The remainder of my bolognese was barely stuffed in a take-out container for five minutes when I received that dreaded phone call, a family friend communicating in heavy sighs before actually uttering the words, “Dawn passed away today.” My parents couldn’t bear to deliver the news. I squeaked what I could to my table of stunned coworkers and sprinted across Davio’s where I collapsed in a chair by the elevator. Every bone in my body dissolved. Paralysis by lethal injection of immediate grief. I called anyone who’d answer, prepared to dial 911 next because I was certain I was having a heart attack.
I saw my team leaving their table and entered the climax of an action movie: the protagonist has five seconds to either take a bullet (read: deal with my coworkers awkward displays of concern) or scale the distance between two 50-story buildings in one gargantuan leap (read: stumble into the rush of one of Philly’s busiest streets during the lunch hour). I darted down the elevator and onto Walnut.
I didn’t walk back to my apartment that day. I hung somewhere in the dense August heat watching my body stagger like a toddler through the crowd, reteaching itself to walk as I cried for a mother who was not there. A mother who could not catch her breath, let alone pick up the phone to break the news. It was in that moment the mere 150 miles separating me from my family felt intergalactic.
Notoriously bad at dressing for the season, my outfit on 8/27/2018 was impractical: a bubblegum pink, fuzzy sweater tucked into a knee-length black pencil skirt with black suede heeled mules. When I close my eyes, I can still feel a thousand tiny fibers stuck to my sweaty torso, the Zara tag slick against my neck. It's not rocket science, you know? You don’t wear a fuzzy sweater in 90 degrees and 90% humidity. But I am doggedly stubborn about doing what I want. And much like I refused to wear anything else that day, I refuse to believe my sister’s existence has been reduced to a jar of ashes atop my parents’ kitchen cabinets, somewhere between three cats and one Miniature Pinscher.
According to the American Cancer Society, the 5-year survival rate for women diagnosed with early stage cervical cancer is 92%. With today’s increase in prevention via routine gynecological screenings, about 45% of cases are early stage. If cervical cancer has spread to surrounding tissues or organs and/or the regional lymph nodes, the 5-year survival rate is 58%. If the cancer has spread to a distant part of the body, the 5-year survival rate is 17%. At a mere 30 years old, my sister was in that 17%.
It’s hard writing about your dead sibling. It’s even harder when they died young from a cancer that doesn’t typically kill people. I spend hours at my dining room table, plugging away on my laptop. I turn my head toward the large mirror leaning against an adjacent wall and I frown at my reflection. My gut hangs over my pants. I’ve gained a fluctuation of five to eight pounds from beer, macaroons, Italian sausage, and other empty carbs and greasy fats that I don’t consume on a regular day, but have, circumstantially, been consuming on regular days. The unfortunate reality is that no day feels regular lately. From the moment I open my eyes, I am plagued with images of my bald, frail sister drowning in a pool of her own blood. I’ve always been imaginative, but I didn’t know the human brain could apprehend familial gore so vividly. I wonder if I am going crazy—if these visions mark some unraveling, and this is only the beginning.
The mutual exclusivity of grieving and leading a normal life is irrefutable. Eight hour work days feel more like 30 when you spend them clutching a bright red stress ball, biting your tongue to avoid snapping at innocuous requests, and disappearing to the restroom in 20-minute intervals to sob to the point of hyperventilation. Despite my reluctance toward visible despair, it all feels performative, thus building upon my existing guilt toward letting Dawn die alone. Nothing makes sadness harder to overcome than resentment toward your own sadness. And you can forget confiding in friends. You’ve heard them talk about depressed people before and how much of a bummer they are to be around, and how helpless they make everyone feel without even trying. Alas, you now self-identify as a burden, and the curtains open to a very isolated you, compulsively scrolling in your apartment, wondering why it’s so fucking hard to leave the house.
Solitude has its sneaky benefits, though. Shutting myself off from the world generated a necessary perspective on my relationship with Dawn. When people die, it’s common to tout your connection as this shining example of intimacy and admiration. But I take ownership of the personal growth it took for me to properly love my sister. The least I can offer my own flesh and blood is posthumous truth.
I cared a lot about what people thought of me growing up, which made it impossible to relate to or appreciate Dawn. I started high school when she was a senior. Senior boys used to corner me in the hallways and ask if I was “anything like my sister” before I had even felt another tongue in my mouth. One even invited me to his house where he waved his massive, bare penis at me upon arrival. I ran all the way home. Fourteen was a weird age. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted other than the standard, shallow manifestations of too many teen movies: a spot on the varsity cheerleading squad, good grades without trying, popularity, a cool boyfriend. Dawn didn’t care about that stuff, though. She liked science fiction and Marilyn Manson and partying with guys with criminal records. She didn’t fit into my bubblegum pink, fuzzy package of Cool Hot Girl—a package I didn’t realize I’d rapidly outgrow more each year. My adolescent delusion forged a space between us that was difficult to reconcile. But I still loved my sister dearly. She was still my best friend.
My delusion didn’t disappear altogether; it merely evolved as we took different paths into adulthood. Dawn got pregnant and never finished college after seven years studying computer science. From that moment on, motherhood became her identity. We couldn’t have a conversation without it circling back to her kids. Dawn’s boys were her life, and what a sad life I found it. For every bit of joy I derived from being an aunt to two perfect cherubs, a darkness grew. I saw my sister—this beautiful, smart, charming, capable woman—spend her days chain smoking cigarettes, chasing toddlers around an unkempt house, watching trash television, and maintaining friendships with women of similar ambitions. I simply couldn’t relate. It’s humbling to recall times when I’ve told people, “my sister could be great, but she’s doing nothing with her life,” as if there’s a barometer for greatness, and as if I was in any position to enforce it. It’s funny, now I dream about a life free from everything I thought I wanted; I am barefoot and pregnant and happier than ever. If only I could tell her.
Only retrospectively have I seen how little the differences between us had to do with who my sister was as a person. You’d never meet someone kinder, more thoughtful. She got along with everyone and never compromised her personality in the process. We waste a lot of time presuming others’ unhappiness based on our learned expectations for what constitutes a full life. I convinced myself Dawn couldn’t possibly be happy without a degree, a job, a move out of our hometown, etc. But even if I was right and she wasn’t happy, the fact that I gave myself even a modicum of authority on her life was merely a projection of my own unhappiness. I have since learned truly happy people don’t even think like this; they just love people for who they are. My sister’s passing certainly made me unhappy in itself, but it also exposed the other forms of unhappiness I was numbing. I’m working on them now. I feel hopeful.
What I feel less hopeful for, though, is humanity. Grief became my home, and through the windows I’d watch the outside world in deep resignation. We live in a culture of forgetfulness. No one lends an ear beyond the initial days of death because no one remembers it happened. I don’t mention my struggles in conversation, less because I feel uncomfortable and more because I am terrified to face the reality that people have simply forgotten. Or, that they’re so hypnotized by instant gratification that they can’t believe I’m not over it yet. I don’t blame them, though.”
That’s where I left off two years ago. When I read this unfinished piece, I hear a girl so overwhelmed by instability that she tried writing about it from a bird’s-eye view. She arrived on scene with a clipboard and a pen, assessing the thing without embracing the gravity. I’m glad I was honest about my relationship with Dawn. But I see, now, the holes in the story. You can’t see the black olives of my sister’s eyes, the endless spill of her dark hair. Hear the goofy, unrestrained pitch of her laugh so you can grasp the deafening silence of its nonexistence. Maybe someday I’ll do her justice. You’ll feel what it’s like to lose someone whose absence is so gutting, it leaves you hollow. But today, I think I’ll just grieve.
This is such a beautiful and raw reflection on grief. Thank you for sharing. ♥️
I felt the pain reading every word. Such a beautiful and honest piece❤️