Thursday, June 3, 2010

Dear Lura,


I think of calling you. Now that I see this picture, I see your face, only you are the one in the smart vintage hat, red on your short hair, you are sitting in the chair in a old time room with old time clothes and it is you that has reached for the phone, to call your sister, to tell me you are all right, that you love me, that it's not my fault. I wrote those words and paused because I thought I'd erase them but now I don't know. Maybe those words came out because I wanted them to. I'll have to think on this.

In my mind you are in your 20's, like you were of course the last time I saw you. It is hard to force my mind to even imagine you as a woman in your 30's, because my mind is as selfish and self centered and anyone's, and acts as if things went on without my witness, they surely did not go on at all. When I know you did. Amalia told me you are all right, at least you were, the last time she talked to you. Living, is the point.

I watched Into the Wild with my family and it hurt hard, it hurt in the pulp red center of my chest, in my veins, in the closing up of my throat. Do your folks know where you are? the kind hippie asked the young man. A call inside of me was twisted- ask him if his sister knows? What about the sister? In the movie it is the sister's voice telling her family's story, just like it is my own that will tell ours, one day. The sister tells the story of the parents and the brother who ran away and they found his car and that is all for two years until they found his body in a van and he had died without ever touching them again. The sister tells the story in a calm and intelligent voice, a voice that sounds as deeply resigned as anything I can think of. I understand this because I can't feel you like I should because it hurts too much. I can't feel you like I should because it hurts to endlessly and engulfingly. My baby sister. Half the time when I write to you I end up drowning in sorries. I just want to say I'm sorry over and over and over until somehow that incantation brings you back. When I'm not sure what I even mean. I'm sorry he hurt you that badly, that long. I'm sorry sometimes I didn't let you sleep in my bed. Jesus I'm sorry I ran away high and fucked up and left you in that house. I AM SORRY

I am sorry I was angry and scream freckled and loud spoken and got left alone more. I wish it had been me.

I'm sorry that you are a grown woman with grown woman desires and thoughts and loves and cares and confusions and fears and discoveries and I don't know a single one. A single one.

Every time I think of you you get younger and then I am with you until finally we are always this way: I am four and my hair is white and you are two and your hair is white and we are tan and white haired and blue eyed and beautiful and fat bellied and we love our fire haired mother very much and we love each other and we love our father. This is the only time we will. But we love each other in that completely oblivious way of love since birth, a thing you take no notice of, like an arm, until it is cut off.

I miss you.

I miss you.

I miss you.
tearful dishwasher said...

Sometimes I believe that our mission here on earth is to burn and burn and burn without ceasing.

To burn with longing.

To burn with regret.

To burn with lovingkindness.



I can see your fire from here, dear girl.



Know that we are all with you in it.



For that is true.




yrs-


tearful

Elisabeth said...

Your lost sister, like a severed arm, is such a powerful image, Maggie.

Whenever you write about this disappeared sister, I'm filled with the sense of haunting that good writing brings - layers of meaning and depth, poignancy, joy and heartache all rolled into one. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Oh Maggie, that is heartbreaking! It makes me so sad and angry and breathless that childhood is not the same innocent sweet time that it should be for all children.

I think all we can say in the end is that we each did our best. The best we could do in certain situations, even if it doesn't feel like our best. I mean, you were just a kid, too.

These memories are haunting though - I hope you one day find Laura and find a way to have that conversation.

Caroline said...

Maggie, I have one sister. My only sibling. She is two years older than me. I love her this way too...and miss her this way too...

Anonymous said...

You break my heart girlfriend. You were a child - a child dammit. The sin is the adults not yours.Helpless hugs....

Brigindo said...

sometimes...your words....really...break....my heart

Ms. Moon said...

The sin was NOT yours, as starrlife pointed out. Even if the grief is.
Oh Maggie. I love you.

SJ said...

Maggie, you make my breathing run short. I am drowning in your sorrow too.

Shona Leah said...

oh... I'm coming back to read this again.. it brings tears to my eyes and, wow
i miss my sister too
xo

Jo said...

I have one sibling, a brother. I cannot even imagine what you are going through. I am so sorry.
I hope you two find your way back to one another.

michelle said...

it's not your fault

xoxoxo

Bird Bath said...

It always chokes me up when I hear this sad history you carry. And I wish for you to find one another again. one day.
Keep hoping Maggie.

swonderful said...

This is tragic. I want to already know that there is a happy ending, but real life doesn't give us that certainty does it? I am so sorry. I hope you are together again, and soon.

Annje said...

It is hard to accept that a sister's journey sometimes takes her, almost violently, from one's life. She will come back one day and you will be 4 and 2 again, like you never grew up. Your letter made me cry, which doesn't seem to be too hard to do today.

A.Smith said...

If it is your fault it is then our fault as well. All of us.

Maggie my dear, dear Maggie. We cannot see into the future at any time but specially when we are young and we are only thinking of the future. There will be a way, a way to restore things as we wish they were even tho they may never be that way.

Hold on to hope, not to despair. What is the point of blaming yourself for a fire you didn't start and that consumed all that was good and simple. Try to build hope within you, don't give up. Never give up. Because it was never your fault, and it could never be.

Annie said...

Dear Maggie, Every time I read of you and your sister, tears come, and I can't make them stop. You were a child. You were nor responsible. He was responsible. Your mother was responsible. We hurt, in that situation, and we don't know who to protect. We are too young to know who to protect. We don't know who to tell, or how to tell it. Who can tell of such a thing? I wish so much for you, you could find your sister; but I think I've written you before, how you must take heart; maybe she's surviving the only way she can right now. Maybe she's doing what she needs, hopefully, to heal. She can love you, and still not be with you. But, I know how it hurts- all of it. Much love and hugs.

Elizabeth said...

Oh, Maggie. My heart goes out to you -- you, who take such horrors and spin them into beautiful words. I have little to say that is meaningful other than keep your love.

Darcy said...

i want her so much to call you/visit you. with all my heart!

Lydia said...

No one could say it like the tearful dishwasher did.

Been such a rocky road with my little sis. She will not answer my letters this year...again.

Anonymous said...

i´m just crying!
but it was not your fault, sweet girl, i am sure!

love love love
yolanda

Miranda said...

Your words have broken my heart. I have a younger sister who I love more than life itself.. I want nothing more than for you both to find a way back into each other's lives again. I am sure that you will..
Thoughts with you xo

jennifer said...

shout it, maggie. someday, she'll hear you. I hope for your peace!

Sarcastic Bastard said...

I hope you find your dear Lura.

You are loved.

Amy said...

Maggie, I hope that someday you and your sister can come back together. And nothing was or is your fault. You were the children doing the best you could in a bad situation that neither of you asked for.

My sister was diagnosed with MS when she was 15 and is now in her thirties. The disease has taken so much including a real adult sistership with her. When I think of how close we were as children it breaks my heart to think of what could have been but just isn't.

Therese said...

My heart hurts for you. My heart also hopes for you.

Petit fleur said...

I feel you Maggie, and I am so sorry that your sis is still missing.

Sending love and hugs,
pf

Ida Mae said...

thank you
for this
~ida mae

Angie Muresan said...

I pray that you find her, Maggie.

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