Ashley would be nice to talk to today.

My big sister, Ashley Ann Brooks, died before I met a lot of you loyal readers. I’ve made mention of her in this journal before, although I admit it usually related to her untimely and tragic death. There’s so much more to her story and I haven’t really written much about live Ashley, loving Ashley, healthy Ashley. I’ve spent years being angry at her for leaving the party so early. I doubt that writing about my anger helps anyone, not even me, so I write about other, less meaningful things. Sometimes I write about important stuff, sure, but I leave her life with my family out of the picture, and that doesn’t seem fair. It doesn’t seem right.

I talk a big game about how we should not be defined by our diagnoses, so it doesn’t make sense to talk about the sickness that led to her death. Or more realistically, I can’t talk about it because I don’t know what the hell happened. I just know that it made a perfect storm. A god damn hurricane of trauma. I know I was there, and I felt sick, by proxy. When my sister suffered, I suffered, and now that she’s not here (hasn’t been here for nearing on 16 years) it’s always surprising how badly I can miss someone I only knew for half my life.

So what do I know about her? I know she did not enjoy having this photo taken, and she’s not smiling on purpose. I have no idea why she was so unhappy. I don’t know her demons. Because she wanted to protect me, always, even as a little kid. So she didn’t share with me why she felt so poorly so often. I know the symptoms, but the disease eludes me. On top of everything, my memory is notoriously colored by my emotions. I can recall things if prompted, but things that made me feel bad when I was younger just don’t crop up in my memory bank. I’m sure that has to do with protecting myself, too. There are years and occasions of which I have no memory, until someone else tells me a story, and suddenly, yeah, I was there.

Despite it all, Ashley and I were very close at the end of her life. I have to remember the chaos of attempting to keep a sick sister alive because that was also the time I knew her the best, give or take toddlerhood. But it’s hard. I remember her turning the EMTs away from our house after the ambulance was called in the middle of the night, after what I can only assume was a seizure. She was just shaking and crying. I recall the utter hopelessness of it all. We were in a very dark, cold place, as a family. I don’t think it’s something we will ever forget, and I personally haven’t forgiven either, yet.

To be clear, I don’t know whose ‘fault’ the entire thing would be. I know if there was a person I could blame (after trying to blame myself for years, which is just a lovely bit of egotism) then I would wish them all manner of harm, and I doubt that’s very healthy either. I want to forgive. Correction, I want to want to forgive. I wish I didn’t feel righteously hateful towards a disease. it’s not a great kind of energy to push into the universe. and yet I hold on to it, because somehow the disease is conflated with getting to be best friends with my cool older sister, for however few years we were that close. It’s a conundrum.

In any case. The only way out is through. If I want a better relationship with the Ashley I love, I’m going to have to work on it in the present. the future takes too long and the past is spoken for. So here I go.

Dear Ashley,

Hey girl. I really miss you tonight. I worked from home today so I got to cuddle Dante a bit this afternoon, during the video position of an 8 hour zoom training. He’s doing great, by the way…he’s almost 16 this year, as I’m sure you’re aware, but I’m taking good care of him, and he’s taking good care of me. We got a new baby, too. Oscar! Oscar is still definitely a puppy, but I can forgive him for that since he’s extraordinarily cute. Well, as cute as puppies can be when you have to live with them full time. He’s curled up on the couch and he actually let me focus during the training for the entire day. I’m planning on heading to the store to pick up some super delicious treats for him tonight. He earned them.

Training was tough, sis. it’s a 16-20 week program for Native clients, and I feel so out of place and awkward compared to my classmates. We open each day with words and prayer, and that’s difficult for me. I don’t know if I believe that when you pray, anyone can be bothered to listen. My classmates have presented such beautiful prayers and honest, heartfelt words. I want to learn and be respectful, so mostly I stay quiet and listen. Maybe prayer works whether you believe it or not, because all I could think about after we were done for the day was wanting to talk to you, somehow. Maybe you can read this. Maybe it’s not all superstition and make believe. Maybe talking with you matters, no matter how. I don’t know.

A lot of the training talks about our relatives, our family. You and I have an embarrassment of wealth in family, even if we’re just counting the aunts and uncles on mom’s side. I am in a good place with the family now, which I know wasn’t always the case. I’m sorry for being so angry at them for so long, for not magically rescuing you. I could have spent those years getting to know them better, instead of holding a grudge. I bet you’d have told me to shut up and respect their love. But I was so blinded and in so much pain.

Now, I don’t have a family of my own, or at least not a partner or children. That makes a lot of the learning pretty hard to swallow. not because I don’t believe in it; I believe in it so much, in fact, that I feel an empty pit in my belly and my heart because I don’t have those things in my life. I should have had babies. I should have a partner. I should should should…my head is just spiraling and my soul hurts, and I want to go Home. But that home doesn’t exist. I feel overwhelming grief at something that never happened.

And then I think about you, and what could have been. You would have been a beautiful mother, if you’d walked that path. you would have been an extraordinary partner, if you’d found the right person. should should should, if if if.

I dream about you sometimes, and some of those dreams are nightmares. It’s been a while since we’ve had time to sit and chat and just enjoy the space between twilight and dawn. I’d like to invite you here, tonight, to come see me. It’s been too long.

Love you so, Missus Ashley Ma’am.