Diary of a dumb girl

many people believed the end of the world was supposed to be in 2012, or in most recent times, 2020 when covid hit as an epidemic. I died on February 16th, 2022. The day my little sister killed herself. She was only 20. Getting that phone call while at work, those three simple words, “your sisters gone” will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I died that day. A part of me will be forgotten forever. No one tells you how loud the silence is after someone’s gone. How do you carry on? Where does the love go? People often say how sorry they are, but there aren’t enough sorrys in the world to make her come back. When people look at us now, there’s pity and sadness there. We became a family of statistics. A suicide number to add to the governments roster.

So, I died. On that cold day in February. She took a piece of me with her, that will be gone forever. A piece of my heart will now be missing for eternity. It’s all a blur from when it happened. I got on an emergency flight and got back home as soon as I could. I sobbed the entire plane rides hone, wiping off so much snot into my sweatshirt, getting pity and worried glances my way. I felt nothing. For the first time, I didn’t care what people thought of me or how I looked.

My parents pick me up, we all collapse to the ground around my suitcases and hugged for what seemed like forever. None of us knew what to do. We carried my heavy suitcases to the car, with an unspoken end date where I would have to return to my job.

We drove to the funeral home for a private viewing with our family. The building was outdated, the floors were a hideous red carpet, and there she was. Lying on a metal table. a blanket tucked up to her neck, her face and hair visible. Her lips were drained of color, her face completely white and not the familiar blush that I was always used to. Her hair still smelled like her, unwashed for a few days. At least they couldn’t take that comfort from us. She was stiff, unmoving. A forever sleep. I couldn’t breathe in there. The woman was trying her hardest to help us; but I wanted to throttle her. How could she possibly understand what we were going through?

I remember glaring at that hideous red carpet, and the smell and everything about that stupid building. I had never seen dead body before, and it changed me. Since she’s been gone, our family fell apart. We all developed mental health issues, and my parents decided to separate. I wish I could tell her.

No one can see it except my mother and father, that there is a giant rain cloud over my head 24/7. Or, I’m strapped to a boulder sized rock, carrying it around with me everyday. I’ve perfected the smile, the laugh, the easy-going girl I once was. It’s easier to mask, and it makes me seem normal again.

When I go home for the holidays, it’s not the same. I no longer have my best friend to wear matching pjs with, and open presents with. She used to wake me up at 5am even as teenagers to open our presents from Santa. This year, we all slept in past 9.

We didn’t watch special Christmas movies, we didn’t open our stockings together, we didn’t sneak sips of alcohol when mom and dad weren’t looking. The joy of our family died, and we became shells of ourselves. Sometimes when I look in the mirror, I see tired, and haunted eyes staring back at me.

It’s been three years now. The pain is still there, I will now have to live with it for the rest of my life, which I was so angry at her for. And for leaving me all alone. When my mom and dad go one day, what am I supposed to do? I’ll be all alone.

Her bedroom is untouched, exactly as she left it. It’s frozen in time, like a museum exhibit. I rarely speak her name out loud now, and our family doesn’t talk about her much. I think it’s too painful; or too painful to remember. I don’t talk about her because I have the fear of being a burden and making people uncomfortable about it. I wish I had someone to talk to.

The worst part is, I’m already forgetting her laugh. Her voice. How tall she was, the color of her hair, her smile. It’s like an invisible string, and every time I get closer, it slips out of my grasp. She’ll never get to meet my friends or my new cat, or be at my wedding, or see me graduate university. And vice versa. She ripped away all of those special moments.

I hate her, and I love her. Nobody understands, and I’m glad people don’t. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. A broken family, depression, anxiety, nightmares where I’m drenched in sweat and panicking…. Whenever I have a missed call from a family member, my body goes into a trigger thinking someone else must have died. One singular phone call broke my heart. and they used to be a mundane thing.

The day she took her life, I died with her.