Anniversary dates either bring tears, laughter, or both. At times, they can bring that person’s death to the surface and stack them on top of others that have perished. Fourteen years ago today, my sister, Charlotte, died. It was sudden, “A stroke to the stomach,” we were told. I just remember circling around her in the emergency room, going home when I thought she’d be okay, lettering the dog out, and then receiving a call that things turned for the worse. Within a few hours her blood pressure was continuing to drop and she was gone. My family just stood there watching because it was all we could do. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in our control. The only thing we could do was cry for her, look at one another in a peculiar way as we saw her face turn a wonderful light pink, and the pain leave her face, making her look at least twenty years younger. It was beautiful and strange and I am still uncertain what happened in that hospital room, but there was something divine going on. What we all saw made us believe in angels.
I took my mom home that night, listening to her cry, and talking out the window. She wasn’t really talking to me but I believe she spoke to the wind and God. “Why?” came from her mouth several times. It was a mother, who had already suffered many times in her life, now facing the greatest loss, the loss of a child. I mostly listened and held her arm as I drove to remind her that I was there. She had gone to a dark place. A place that sits between sanity and insanity. If you have ever lost someone that you love, perhaps you understand that place? I never told anyone this but I heard my mom discussing wanting to die that night. I believe she was suicidal, only if for a few hours, and I knew because she was in such enormous pain, it was real.
When we arrived at her apartment, we sat there together trying to process what just happened. It was so unclear. The only comfort I could give her was my presence. The presence of a child. I didn’t sleep that night because I was worried she’d do something to hurt herself. Now, it was not her. It was not exactly my mother that talked about her death. It was Charlotte’s mother. That might sound strange but that is all my mom could see and feel at that moment. She was Charlotte’s mother and she lost her child. It wasn’t until the next day that she sat at the kitchen table next to me and said, “I’m in so much pain, honey, but I have four other children and grandchildren that I need to be here for. It was then that I knew she would not harm herself and that she would work through this pain, the worst of pains, for her family. I saved my tears for the drive home.
Throughout the years, I have tried to write about grief, describe it the best I could. At least, describe my experiences and what I have witnessed. Grief is a storm that continues to brew within your soul for a lifetime. There will be times when it stays dormant, allowing you to feel somewhat “normal” for a while. Then, there will be moments when it surfaces, swirls you around, fogs your mind, tightens your belly, and leaves you weeping in your favorite chair or on a downed tree sitting in the woods. One never knows when the storm of grief will erupt, and if you fight it, the storm will flood you or spin you out of control. This is why the best way to cope with grief and loss is to accept it. Accept all of it, especially the ebb and flow of emotions that will put so much weight on your chest you cannot take a full breath.
My sister Charlotte was someone special in my life and the life of everyone who knew her. There are times that I do not know how to describe her complexities and her love, and other times where the words flow out of me that could fill a couple of hundred pages of a novel, and they might.
Her influence on me started at a young age. I didn't even know it at the time, but when I heard stories of why she dropped out of Lafollette High School and never wanted to return, it affected me. Hearing about how she was stuck in a special education room in what they called the “K” wing made me confused as a child. Why would she be in one classroom all day, I wasn’t? Then, when my mom told me about the boys who fondled her in what us Lafollette Lancers call the “Pit,” and that unwelcomed assault scared her and was met with no action, I was angry. Charlotte was twelve years older than me, but there were many days when I walked the hallways of that high school and pictured her there, scared, and wanting to drop out. I wish I could have protected her. My youthful anger would have exacted a revenge on those boys.
Charlotte was like a second mom to my brother and me. She often took care of us when my mom was at work. She kept an eye on what we were doing, and listened for any trouble, especially when we became teenagers. One time, Charlotte found me drinking my dad’s whiskey one evening, and shortly after I went out to play basketball in the driveway, thinking I could sweat off the alcohol, my mom was on the porch. She talked to me about alcohol and how it could harm me, and next thing I knew I was in an alcohol and other drugs class at school. I didn’t get mad at her. It was hard to be angry at Charlotte for long. She would hug you too much for that. That class became one of my favorites.
I could tell a million stories about her. I could describe how she was smiling and in a wonderfully happy mood one day, and the next I would hear her crying through my bedroom wall. We eventually found out she was schizophrenic. Imagine not only having to navigate life having an intellectual disability but also serious mental illness. I think she did her best. That’s really all I want to say about that.
Influence! Yes, I can say that I sit here now, going into my eighteenth year as an educator, about to enter a new role as a special education coordinator, and admit that Charlotte is why I do what I do. She is the reason I spent almost a decade in supported employment prior to being a teacher. She has also had a great influence on my two novels that are about mental illness and loss. When I am with my students, I picture her in my classroom, listening to my stories, being treated with dignity and respect, and not being looked at for her disabilities but for her abilities. She had so much to offer the world. When I was a dean of students, I gave a presentation about Charlotte and how she impacted me. The past couple of years, I created a lesson for my students about Charlotte. I wanted them to understand how great she was so they could see how wonderful they are. Her story lives on.
On Sunday, April 18, 2022, I was drowning in the depths of pain meds, one being an opioid. The doctors filled me with a cocktail of drugs because they really had no idea why I was in so much pain, so the meds were injected and also given to me orally. I left this world that Sunday and entered a new one. I became a zombie, laying in my bed, trying to find the energy to live or get up and kill myself. It was then, in a dream, that Charlotte came to me. She emerged through the woods and entered a field and held her hand out for me to come with her. I awoke suddenly and I was surprised that I was alive. I thought Charlotte had come for me because I had died. Now, looking back on that time in my life, looking back on the past year after losing my mom, I believe Charlotte was not taking me because of death but bringing me back to life. It was then that I stopped taking the medication and started my journey to discover what was happening to me. Perhaps it wasn’t a dream. Maybe, just maybe, she was telling her little brother that he was meant to stay here a while longer and that he had something to offer the world. I am not sure how to thank Charlotte for being my sister, so the only way I know how is to honor her life and the beautiful soul she was.
Charlotte was one of my greatest teachers, and as I still study her, examine her influence on my life, she still is. Her lessons will go on for a lifetime. I miss her laughter. It filled a room.
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