(no subject)
I still dream of dead birds even though I haven't owned one in years. I suppose childhood guilt stays with you into adulthood.
I suppose I grew up alright with Mom and Dad even thoug Dad was never home and I hated not seeing him. But he was home. He worked nights and weekends. I used to lie on him for five minutes before I went to school because it meant I got to see him.
I remember the first funeral I attended. Five years old. It as summer. I wasn't five yet. I was four. And for Easter I had received a small pink Easter egg wheel barrow wooden toy. And for some reason I went to that funeral because it was my uncle. I didn't stay long, but I remember the line of people, the casket, and the pink wheel barrow.
The first real death I was exposed to was the bird.
I have no idea where it comes from, this tough girl act, but I do hate crying in front of others, although I do a lot of it. I suppose I don't want to inconvenience people and I realise that others have their own problems and who am I to impose mine too there. Oh but the nights are hard for these thoughts roam free and the tears as well.
I remember watching Oprah with my mother and hearing of a tale. A daughter took her fathers best worn sweatshirt, with coffee stains and all and made a pillow out of it, when the father died in 9/11.
I was 11 when my first grandparent died. Famous cancer took her and ravaged her bare. It's been twelve years and I have tears to spare still. I stole the idea of the sweater as much as the even stole part of me.
I get attached to things easily and I talk to things. No, really. For when I was in fourth grade and I heard of the word cancer, I carried a facial tissue, folded, in my tunic, and I told myself, I said, if this tissue makes it, grandma will be ok. And then it was the rubber band. Blue. But then one day I forgot the tissue in the pocket and I wasn't sure where the rubber band was.
I hate February as much as I hate the phone that rings at night.
Not even fourteen and another double funeral. A grandfather and a grandmother figure. Ah, but these things happen with old age, yes, but in the mind of a child immortality is for all.
There's a picture of an uncle I never met, carried and carred for in a notebook. For eleven years it's been transferred from one book to another, and for a long time it was a friend I could talk to.
The pictures have grown in numbers over the years.
By the time high school ended, there was only one grandfather left. So lucky was I to have known all four, to have cherished them, but do you really cherish someone when you don't even understand what they are to you? When one lived so far that for years you didn't see each other? But the memories, the memories are there.
And yet, the collection of sweaters has grown. Here I am, twenty-three, sleeping with sweaters of the dead, feeling comforted and needeing them for the presence they bring. Add an uncle, add another grandfather.
In one year I went to six funerals. Eight died. And for months it was one after an another.
It is difficult to express emotions to others. So difficult. Because it feels like a bother. I worry too much. I have my heart on my sleeve and despite the act, I cry easily. And so nights find me here, with 3am thoughts keeping me company, looking for the company of a green, blue, or white sleeve, my thoughts running from one thing to the next.
And I hold my breath hoping no one will hear because admitting these tears are for the dead of a decade past, or for my own insecurities, when others have so many bigger ones makes everything feel insignificant.
or how for four days straight nothing felt right, because a young woman was killed in an unfortunate car accident. And still to this day, I weep for this stranger I barely knew. You can imagine how it is for those I did.
Excuse these random thoughts as I ponder and think and try to find my happy spot. Perhaps my childish heart will get the best of me, but for now my adult mind agrees.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with this, but writing has always been a way out for me. I cannot express in person what I always wish to say, and even here I feel,there's a lot missing.
Don't worry though, I'm fine. I just feel too much and every now and then everything needs to get out. Like when I broke down in tears in class, over these dead relatives of mine and their sweaters.
And when you find out of people who you car about that aren't doing well, it only makes the whole matter worse.
Pathetic maybe, but I suppose it's part of who I am.
My apologies.
I suppose I grew up alright with Mom and Dad even thoug Dad was never home and I hated not seeing him. But he was home. He worked nights and weekends. I used to lie on him for five minutes before I went to school because it meant I got to see him.
I remember the first funeral I attended. Five years old. It as summer. I wasn't five yet. I was four. And for Easter I had received a small pink Easter egg wheel barrow wooden toy. And for some reason I went to that funeral because it was my uncle. I didn't stay long, but I remember the line of people, the casket, and the pink wheel barrow.
The first real death I was exposed to was the bird.
I have no idea where it comes from, this tough girl act, but I do hate crying in front of others, although I do a lot of it. I suppose I don't want to inconvenience people and I realise that others have their own problems and who am I to impose mine too there. Oh but the nights are hard for these thoughts roam free and the tears as well.
I remember watching Oprah with my mother and hearing of a tale. A daughter took her fathers best worn sweatshirt, with coffee stains and all and made a pillow out of it, when the father died in 9/11.
I was 11 when my first grandparent died. Famous cancer took her and ravaged her bare. It's been twelve years and I have tears to spare still. I stole the idea of the sweater as much as the even stole part of me.
I get attached to things easily and I talk to things. No, really. For when I was in fourth grade and I heard of the word cancer, I carried a facial tissue, folded, in my tunic, and I told myself, I said, if this tissue makes it, grandma will be ok. And then it was the rubber band. Blue. But then one day I forgot the tissue in the pocket and I wasn't sure where the rubber band was.
I hate February as much as I hate the phone that rings at night.
Not even fourteen and another double funeral. A grandfather and a grandmother figure. Ah, but these things happen with old age, yes, but in the mind of a child immortality is for all.
There's a picture of an uncle I never met, carried and carred for in a notebook. For eleven years it's been transferred from one book to another, and for a long time it was a friend I could talk to.
The pictures have grown in numbers over the years.
By the time high school ended, there was only one grandfather left. So lucky was I to have known all four, to have cherished them, but do you really cherish someone when you don't even understand what they are to you? When one lived so far that for years you didn't see each other? But the memories, the memories are there.
And yet, the collection of sweaters has grown. Here I am, twenty-three, sleeping with sweaters of the dead, feeling comforted and needeing them for the presence they bring. Add an uncle, add another grandfather.
In one year I went to six funerals. Eight died. And for months it was one after an another.
It is difficult to express emotions to others. So difficult. Because it feels like a bother. I worry too much. I have my heart on my sleeve and despite the act, I cry easily. And so nights find me here, with 3am thoughts keeping me company, looking for the company of a green, blue, or white sleeve, my thoughts running from one thing to the next.
And I hold my breath hoping no one will hear because admitting these tears are for the dead of a decade past, or for my own insecurities, when others have so many bigger ones makes everything feel insignificant.
or how for four days straight nothing felt right, because a young woman was killed in an unfortunate car accident. And still to this day, I weep for this stranger I barely knew. You can imagine how it is for those I did.
Excuse these random thoughts as I ponder and think and try to find my happy spot. Perhaps my childish heart will get the best of me, but for now my adult mind agrees.
I'm not sure what I'm trying to accomplish with this, but writing has always been a way out for me. I cannot express in person what I always wish to say, and even here I feel,there's a lot missing.
Don't worry though, I'm fine. I just feel too much and every now and then everything needs to get out. Like when I broke down in tears in class, over these dead relatives of mine and their sweaters.
And when you find out of people who you car about that aren't doing well, it only makes the whole matter worse.
Pathetic maybe, but I suppose it's part of who I am.
My apologies.