whoda thunk I could do original writing too? wow...
Title: Looking Up
Summary: The bond between sisters is one not easily broken.
Disclaimer: based on a writing exercise in which we had to write about a family member who was preferably deceased. I chose to write about my older sister who died at birth and then it kind of evolved into...this. The main speaker in this is not meant to be me btw, it's just based off my own experiences etc.
I’ve always been a worrier but Laura calms me down. We shared a room when we were kids and when I had nightmares she’d always tell me that they weren’t real and that I was safe. She’d always wait until I fell asleep before she went back to bed and I always felt better knowing that she was watching over me.
People say we look alike and I guess we do. She’s pale like me with blue-grey eyes (or maybe more green?) and the honeyed hair of our mothers’ youth. She’s twenty four and beautiful - the oldest daughter, the matriarch of our generation. We have a big extended family, nearly all girls and women. We like it that way.
Laura used to fight all the time with our cousins - Jack and Pia - because they liked teasing me. I wasn’t like them; they were older, adventurous, loud and I liked reading more than climbing trees so therefore I was weird and needed to be teased.
Laura tried sticking up for me but I usually just curled up in a corner and listened to them bicker while I read a book. She tried to get me to play with them sometimes so they wouldn’t tease me but that never worked either. To get them back for taking my book off me or tricking me into picking up a piece of dried dog poo, I used to go and tell mum and Aunty Julie that they were being naughty and then they’d get in trouble.
“They always loved you,” Laura told me when I was thirteen. “They just never really liked you. I mean, you’re not that bad now that you’re older but when you were little you used to piss us off by getting us into trouble all the time.”
Jesus, I remember thinking. I just wanted to be included without getting teased! It’s hard being the youngest. You’re always the object of ridicule - weak and slow and stupid. And I never really meant to get them into trouble, it just sort of...happened.
Isn’t that what younger siblings do?
Laura and I used to play dress ups when we were little, but when we got older it changed into a much more serious business. She spent hours doing my hair and teaching me how to put on mascara without poking myself in the eye. She used to manicure my nails as well, and tell me about the boys she knew at school.
I usually just sat there feeling dizzy with happiness. My becoming a teenager seemed to have sparked a change in Laura. For years she’d been charged with the duty of being a good role model to me, protecting me from the big bad world. Now we were suddenly becoming confidantes. It made me glow with pleasure, to know that she entrusted me with her secrets.
I began to tell her mine too and she always had an answer for my problems, a sly word about the boys I liked but was too shy to go up and talk to. She was always so much more poised than me, so much cleverer, so much more beautiful. I still remember seeing her in her ball dress, and the lump in my throat when I realised that I could never compare to her.
“You’re so beautiful,” I blurted.
“You wait till your ball,” she said, beaming, as she pulled my awkward thirteen-year-old self into her arms. I closed my eyes and heard her dress rustling as she hugged me. Her neck smelt like mum’s White Linen perfume. “I’m going to make you look amazing for your ball.”
I blushed at the thought. Me? Beautiful? But I believed her. Laura always knew the right things to say. Always knew how to encourage me in just the right way. After high school she went travelling around the world and then came back to study psychology at university. While she was gone I put pen to paper and on her return I offered my first novel to her. She was rapt in it and convinced me that I should pursue writing as a career.
“You’ve read more books than anybody I know. You’d make a brilliant author. Honestly, you should try and get yourself published. I’d read your books.”
This is the could have, should have, would have.
This is the life I missed out on having because my sister - my real sister - is dead.
On the 2nd of December in 1984 Laura Richmond emerged from a bloody gash in my mother’s flesh and stopped breathing before she’d even started. She never lived long enough to be my sister, my friend. She never comforted me after my nightmares, never teased me about boys, never cut my hair, never scooped me up into her arms and spun until we were both dizzy. She never curled my eyelashes to make me feel beautiful or put bandaids on my skinny knees, sticky with blood from the gravel drive.
I’ve got the finished manuscript for a novel hidden in my room. I’ve never let anyone else read it. One day I want to get it published and dedicate it to her - my muse. I wish that she could be here with me when that happens but...
I hope that wherever she is she’ll be proud of me.
Summary: The bond between sisters is one not easily broken.
Disclaimer: based on a writing exercise in which we had to write about a family member who was preferably deceased. I chose to write about my older sister who died at birth and then it kind of evolved into...this. The main speaker in this is not meant to be me btw, it's just based off my own experiences etc.
I’ve always been a worrier but Laura calms me down. We shared a room when we were kids and when I had nightmares she’d always tell me that they weren’t real and that I was safe. She’d always wait until I fell asleep before she went back to bed and I always felt better knowing that she was watching over me.
People say we look alike and I guess we do. She’s pale like me with blue-grey eyes (or maybe more green?) and the honeyed hair of our mothers’ youth. She’s twenty four and beautiful - the oldest daughter, the matriarch of our generation. We have a big extended family, nearly all girls and women. We like it that way.
Laura used to fight all the time with our cousins - Jack and Pia - because they liked teasing me. I wasn’t like them; they were older, adventurous, loud and I liked reading more than climbing trees so therefore I was weird and needed to be teased.
Laura tried sticking up for me but I usually just curled up in a corner and listened to them bicker while I read a book. She tried to get me to play with them sometimes so they wouldn’t tease me but that never worked either. To get them back for taking my book off me or tricking me into picking up a piece of dried dog poo, I used to go and tell mum and Aunty Julie that they were being naughty and then they’d get in trouble.
“They always loved you,” Laura told me when I was thirteen. “They just never really liked you. I mean, you’re not that bad now that you’re older but when you were little you used to piss us off by getting us into trouble all the time.”
Jesus, I remember thinking. I just wanted to be included without getting teased! It’s hard being the youngest. You’re always the object of ridicule - weak and slow and stupid. And I never really meant to get them into trouble, it just sort of...happened.
Isn’t that what younger siblings do?
Laura and I used to play dress ups when we were little, but when we got older it changed into a much more serious business. She spent hours doing my hair and teaching me how to put on mascara without poking myself in the eye. She used to manicure my nails as well, and tell me about the boys she knew at school.
I usually just sat there feeling dizzy with happiness. My becoming a teenager seemed to have sparked a change in Laura. For years she’d been charged with the duty of being a good role model to me, protecting me from the big bad world. Now we were suddenly becoming confidantes. It made me glow with pleasure, to know that she entrusted me with her secrets.
I began to tell her mine too and she always had an answer for my problems, a sly word about the boys I liked but was too shy to go up and talk to. She was always so much more poised than me, so much cleverer, so much more beautiful. I still remember seeing her in her ball dress, and the lump in my throat when I realised that I could never compare to her.
“You’re so beautiful,” I blurted.
“You wait till your ball,” she said, beaming, as she pulled my awkward thirteen-year-old self into her arms. I closed my eyes and heard her dress rustling as she hugged me. Her neck smelt like mum’s White Linen perfume. “I’m going to make you look amazing for your ball.”
I blushed at the thought. Me? Beautiful? But I believed her. Laura always knew the right things to say. Always knew how to encourage me in just the right way. After high school she went travelling around the world and then came back to study psychology at university. While she was gone I put pen to paper and on her return I offered my first novel to her. She was rapt in it and convinced me that I should pursue writing as a career.
“You’ve read more books than anybody I know. You’d make a brilliant author. Honestly, you should try and get yourself published. I’d read your books.”
This is the could have, should have, would have.
This is the life I missed out on having because my sister - my real sister - is dead.
On the 2nd of December in 1984 Laura Richmond emerged from a bloody gash in my mother’s flesh and stopped breathing before she’d even started. She never lived long enough to be my sister, my friend. She never comforted me after my nightmares, never teased me about boys, never cut my hair, never scooped me up into her arms and spun until we were both dizzy. She never curled my eyelashes to make me feel beautiful or put bandaids on my skinny knees, sticky with blood from the gravel drive.
I’ve got the finished manuscript for a novel hidden in my room. I’ve never let anyone else read it. One day I want to get it published and dedicate it to her - my muse. I wish that she could be here with me when that happens but...
I hope that wherever she is she’ll be proud of me.