Hi Honey. Penny’s dead.
The quivering voice of my mother.
Most people would be stunned senseless to hear that their little sister was dead at 44.
My experience was a sense of falling, like an old, massive theater curtain. Dense and thick and heavy with time and laughter and sorrow. Just plummeting into a heap on the floor of an ancient stage. Like the inevitability of gravity. I’ve known this was coming for thirteen years.
And like a great tide, it crests, rescinds.
A sudden undertow. Dragging me down into black churning water.
Tumbling. Grief. Anger. Permanence. Tragedy. Relief. Wincing scorn for the relief. The burst of violence, aggression at being robbed of something cherished.
Each pushing and twisting, battering me with furious force.
The crushing moment of realization that I would never hear her voice again.
Like a submarine that loses ballast and sinks helpless, into the depths. Then is crushed in like a Coke can by the immense pressure swallowing it.
Lashing hatred for the people and systems that ripped a little girl apart, and for those that failed her. Including her.
Am I one, too…? Push the thought under.
She always joked about getting old and becoming the weird old lady with the too-long braid and a wide-brimmed hat on a lavender three-wheel bike. A daisy’ed basket on the front with her cat in it.
She’s been saying that since we were kids, playing on Grandma Ward’s bike.
It’s her favorite picture. I’m 8, struggling to get the bike up to speed. Penny, 4, behind me with her hands in the air, laughing like mad. The giant old lady bike with the basket and corny horn flying down Williams Ave in front of Papa’s house.
She’s been talking about being that old lady on a bike since that day back in 1981.
She will never be an old lady.
