drama

Two little girls.

Do I have the stamina to write of a tragedy as it occurs? of heartbreak as the figurative organ is cut, falters, and pumps onward? I am the war photographer who takes her pictures as her subjects die: I am present, yet I cannot stop the carnage.

I am speaking of a bittersweet vacation. I have just returned from a visit to my sister's house on the west coast. I just returned from the drugstore with my photographs of the two of us, smiling into the sun, into the freeze-framed moment, captured on film. I miss her so much it hurts.

Here I stop and rub my eyes. I am so fatigued. I am tired by the tragedy we call life and the lives of the people we love.

when I was in seminary, my sister left home. She was 16 years old and brave. She was 16 years old and stupid. She was 16 years old and miserable. She was 16 years old and, she was my sister, and she left home.

She left home because it stopped feeling like home. She left to find home.

At seminary, abroad, I would lie awake at night, my roommate and I with our duel insomnia--our shared homesickness and giddyness of being up at 2am--and so we talked about our childhood--not so distant past (and now that I think of it, an extention of the present). A few timezones away, and you tend to remember the funny sentimental things, school projects, pranks, our parents mannerisms, the odd kid in the class who smashed bees and got a kick out of it, the sleepwalking sibling, the time we collected lightning bugs and let them out indoors. Our stories were amusing, and enlightening because we now understood our parents from a distence. We had objectivity, we could see our past from a vantage point of "being-0ut-on-our-own-and-quasi-independant."

Sharing those stories, I appreciated my upringing more than ever. My folks had given me the best of every world, exposed us to beauty, culture, joy and quirkyness. Life was interesting. Freedom was granted, they trusted us to do the right thing, and we respected what they did for us and everyone was happy, at least, most of the time.

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There were two puppies in a yard. Both had collars, both had retractible leads. One puppy frolicked in the yard, ate grass, chased its tail, and occassionally ran until the lead was stretched to the limitations of its tauntness. The other puppy pulled and pulled and pulled and pulled, until the lead snapped one day. The puppy ran accross the street, dodging cars. Then it sat on the neighbors lawn and chased its tail, chewed grass and then turned around to stare at the old yard with big sad eyes. It then went further down along the street.
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The hope is that all children grow up and become adults. Parents are happy when their children choose a lifestyle that is based on values taught: but even then, the severing of the umbilical chord is always traumatic. Visiting my sister, I saw that the chord wasn't severed all the way: there were a few strands of tissue: the break wasn't clean, but torn and shredded, like a flower with a fibrous stem. You twist and pull the hearty stem from its firm root system, and the effort coats your hands in pale green sticky juice. The stem of the beautiful flower is a mucky mess of strands.

As we were saying goodbye at the airport I had one blessing for her. That the spats she has with my parents when she is 25, 30 and 45 are not the same reoccuring themes of the fights we have as 16 year olds. We need to move on, so that our disagreements can mature. It's a bleak way of looking at reconciliation: forgive and forget so that we may fight over other things? Ah, yes. see, that would be utopian--it would allow true freedom for my sister, it would allow our family to more on from what is now a four year struggle.

This trip was bittersweet. I saw my sister's fierce need to live her life as she so chooses. I see my parents expectations from her (and expectations never go away, especially when your child is your reason for living, your demigod). And like two bullets in the sky, it will be a far cry for these two views to meet somewhere in the middle.

Coming home, I asked my mother to make the trip to see my sister. She wont go. My mother's need for self preservation, is, well, she claims she is too weak for this trip, it would only make things worse. I understand.

In my sister's home, I begged her to understand my parents. Their expectations were too high, they tried to do what they thought was best, they didn't hate her by raising her in the lifestyle they did, they were concerned for her safety, her health, her welbeing. There are some things she can't forgive them for. this too, I understand.

Life is so short, you know? At the end of the day, can we become strong enough people to face the one's we love who have hurt us? I fear this wound can never be healed...

...I also feel arrogant and aloof by believing that this all can be easily solved, that this "situation" can go away. I want to stamp my foot and shout, "STOP it, already, you are all just being so SILLY!"

But I am me, and they are they, and this is between them. I can only be the cheerleader, the rah rah girl with the high kicking legs and Crest-white smile, the varsity lettered jacket, the supporter of the brave, ...and believe me, my pom poms are in my back pocket, I can take them out at any moment