Devotion part 1
Or, the promise of an older sister.
I used to have this recurring dream as a kid where my daddy was holding that big old gun, pointed right at me, swaying and slurring and spittle flying off his lips as he yells at me, words a jumbled mess of curses, and yet, there my 8 year old self stood, tall and brave, arms outstretched and body feeling solid in the task of protecting my baby sister, all but 3, her white-blonde hair a mess and red cheeks stained with tears as she cowers behind my bow-legged knees. In the dream, the AR seemed so big, even in comparison to my daddy, a man whose bulky frame often shrank in the light of his cowardice, and I remember the focus of my dream shifting from my dad with his finger on the trigger, aimed at my little chest, rising and falling rapidly, to my mother standing in the doorway of my bedroom, leaned up against the doorframe picking at a fingernail, lit cigarette between her fingers. She blows out the smoke, and it rises as she looks at the scene before her as if bored.
This dream used to confuse and terrify me as a little girl. I couldn’t understand how my brain had transformed this real-life nightmare into something even more terrifying. How it could take the image of my daddy, indeed swaying and slurring in the hallway in front of my bedroom, muzzle pressed against the surface of his strong jaw, me, in my bed, covers pulled up to my chin, shaking silently clutching my stuffie, and my mother, sobbing and begging and pleading, and turn it into something where my baby sister is being threatened and I seemed to be the only one concerned about it. How, even at my young age, 8 years old, a baby in my own right, showed no hesitation in protecting her younger sister. How my mother, ever the doting mother, only 27 and walking through her own living nightmare married to a man whose demons seemed to be out in full-force before her, the mother whose anxiety was often suffocating, the amount of love she had for me a weighted blanket in which I happily dove under, curled up under, could in my dream, appear so nonplussed that her husband was pointing an AR-15 right at her daughter’s chest. It made no sense to me. On one of the mornings of waking up from that dream, I remember telling my mother about it as we rode in the car on the way to school. From my memory, she didn’t say anything. Maybe she asked a couple of clarifying questions, but really, I think she went silent, in despair that I had to grapple with things like life and death at the hands of my parents, and how powerless she must have felt.
Of course, now, as an adult, I understand. My brain was doing anything it could to process the scariest night of my life. It was taking memories, feelings, the bone-deep terror I felt, and twisting them. It was taking the utter devotion and lifelong promise to love and protect my baby sister and turning it into something ugly. Even in death, would you choose her? Even if everything else that is promised to you fell away? The promise of safety in the arms of your mother morphed into something else, and your dad’s ugly cloud of grief and addiction and anger and hurt came and wrapped itself completely around you? Yes. Even then.
When she was born, I took my role as her older sister very seriously. 5 years older with hair that barely reached my chin, hazel eyes vast and assessing, a brain already obsessed with getting lost in books, an imagination so wide it stretched way outside the small block we lived on, and her, tiny and pink, cries that pierced the air and little fists that clenched and swung back and forth; I just adored her. Those were hard times, daddy off in Iraq, mom and I miles, states away from family. I remember my mom’s huge balloon of a stomach and swollen ankles as she pushed grocery carts and mopped the floors, us writing letters and packing up a box full of goodies to send way far away to wherever he was, so far I couldn’t comprehend it, squeezed in tight in front of the computer screen as we tried to make out his ultra-pixelated and frozen picture on the video call, his frustration clear across the miles between us.
Things got better, easier, when Grammy came to live with us. She and my grandfather had recently split up, and mom needed help now that she was about to be solo-parenting a newborn while trying to get her eldest ready for kindergarten. She brought Tuffy, of course, her fluffy white mess of a Maltese, and somehow a bunk bed materialized in my bedroom. From my memory, that was our first time sharing a bedroom, but not our last, and I loved it. I loved having her read me books before bed, and listen to my every whim and take them all as seriously as I did. I loved how easy things seemed around her, how it felt like exhaling a deep breath to be with her. Soon, the baby was born. True to her nature, she chose the most inconvenient day, the hottest summer day, to arrive. The day of my kindergarten orientation. A day of meeting my teacher, touring my new classroom, and buying crayons and pencils. Mom did all of this while in labor. Pausing in the aisles of Walmart to lean on the cart and breathe deep during contractions, I remember Grammy repeating over and over something like “We can do this later, you need to go to the hospital.” My stubborn mother pushed through, we finished going through the list of supplies, and soon we were back home, walking to our neighbor’s house. I was being dropped off. I remember being devastated that I couldn’t go to the hospital, I felt left out, and I felt scared. When would I see them again? When would I get to meet my baby sister? But there I was, left at the annoying neighbor’s house, and The Bee Movie played in the background of my racing mind. It felt like hours. In reality, she was born less than an hour after they arrived, somewhere in the six o’clock hour. Finally, it was my turn to meet her. I don’t remember how I got to the hospital, or who walked with me to the gift shop to pick something out for my new sister, but I do remember carrying the small stuffed purple rabbit with me up the long, long, white hallways, in the elevator, down more halls until we reached mom’s room. It was dim, and it was quiet, and there mom was in the bed, holding a little bundle. I climbed up into the bed, and then before I knew it, she was in my arms.
I couldn’t have understood then the life-long devotion I was to have as her older sister. I could never have dreamt that in the hardest times, the scariest times, it would be up to me to watch over her, to become an extension of our mother. To me, she was a wonder. I remember leaning over her bassinet as she slept, just staring at her. I would pet her head, ever so gently rubbing where her hair would one day be, trace the slope of her nose and little cupid’s bow, squeeze her feet, and softly pick at the dried milk on her neck, behind her ears. She was, for all intents and purposes, my baby. I think a part of me loved her as if she actually was mine. I think, even then, I felt and understood the sense of responsibility I had to her, and I took on that weight happily, eagerly. There was an invisible, unspoken devotion, one that I would spend the rest of my life trying to impress her with.
[TO BE CONTINUED…]
