In March, or was it April, over Spring Break, I went to stay with my Tia y Tio in Victoria for a couple of days. While I was there, they got a phone call saying that their son had died in a car crash. They hadn't seen him in a long time, and he had some problems, but still, he was their son, and they loved him unconditionally. I saw my aunt's face when she heard, and thats one of those things that I will never forget, that look of complete pain and sorrow. She looked like the sun would never shine again, and it shook me all the way through. I stayed at a friend's place that night, and then came home the next day, but it stuck with me these four months. And then today, I found out that their son's, my cousin's, girlfriend had died in a car crash a couple of days ago. The same cause of death, only four months apart, and people who had been dating. What are the odds?? And it makes me think, what if her death wasn't accidental? What if she was just so emotionally shattered by his death that she caused her own? I guess we'll never know.
I never even met her, but I still feel sad for her, for a life ended too soon, for her friends and her family, just like I felt bad when my cousin died. I hadn't seen him since I was a toddler, I don't even remember his face. I just remember the way he smelled, and the doll he gave me, and his black runners. I remember sitting on the arm of the old brown sofa in our house that we lived in then, holding my new doll and looking up at him and his girlfriend of that time. I remember that she was blond and wore a jean jacket. I still have the doll they gave me. It's funny, the things you remember.
I find myself talking to dead people sometimes. Not like having a conversation with them, not like a psychic, but more like just chatting, in case they can hear me, when I'm walking to the bus stop, or cleaning the bathroom, or washing the dishes. I talk about what I know about them. I talk about their families sometimes, whats going on, in case they can't see it for themselves. It makes me feel better, I guess, the knowledge that maybe I'm making them feel better.
The last three and a half years, so many people I know have died. There was one week, a couple of January's ago, when a whole bunch of people I knew died; a man named Ken Moore, who I'd known since I was a toddler, my friend's Grandma, the Nan of the guy who sat next to me in school, even my pet hamster died that week. It really shook me. I was only twelve, and it was like the entire world was slowly dying off. Every morning for the next couple of weeks I woke up and wondered if anyone I knew had died overnight. It's not a good way to live. It makes you sad, and scared, and lonely. You separate yourself from people, in case they die next.
I used to have dreams when I was a little kid, about my mum leaving me alone. It was always the same dream; I was playing on the rocks outside of my sister's school; I was too little to go to school yet. I was wearing my red party dress and my white stockings and my little black mary janes, with my hair down, which I hardly ever did, because it was so long and tangled so easily. I was jumping from boulder to boulder, like I always did. My mum was talking to another adult while I played. I was jumping, and I landed wrong and slipped and cut my knee, ripping my white tights at the same time. I can remember when that actually happened. I got blood all over my tights and had to throw them out. But when I really did that, my mum picked me up and took me into the school and cleaned and bandaged my knee. In the dream, though, she just looked at me, and got on her bike, her old yellow and silver one, and rode away, with my standing there screaming after her. I remember waking up from that dream crying in the dark, and climbing into my sister's bed, because I was too afraid of being left alone. I had that dream again last night, for the first time since I was a little kid, probably for the first time since I started kindergarten. I'd nearly forgotten about it, and then I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, crying in the dark like I did when I was little. But my sister moved out a couple of weeks ago. She's not here anymore. I have to grow up and deal with it myself.
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