Tag: letters

Lost in Your Mind

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dear Supergrover,

When my mind goes quiet, there’s a black and white picture of you that appears. It’s the only one you’ve ever taken just for me. It’s not that I don’t like other pictures of you. That’s not it at all. I like that you were thinking of me when you took it, and there’s just a hint of a smile with mischievous eyes. I wonder what your eyes looked like that day, and the days after…. in which we were clinging to each other and you kept whispering “you’re safe.” Beautiful girl, you whisper me to sleep with that one enduring phrase. I don’t sleep much, but when I do you watch over me, just like you’ve done since I was “young.” When I get scared in the night, I hear you in my head. “Maybe a doughnut will help.” I would have taken any vow that day, but the one I took was unusual.

Sometimes I feel like you don’t realize it’s unusual, because you’re big picture and I’m in the weeds. I know it would take you being on vacation for us to even have a chance to drink coffee together, so it’s just difficult having feelings you’re not there to catch because you can’t and shouldn’t be. Yet, I still signed the paper with blood.

The game changed from Old Maid to No Limit Texas Hold ‘Em, beautiful girl. Please know that this is true. Feel it in your heartbeat. Let the knowledge settle in you, because I am not placing guilt or blame. I am asking “where do we go from here?” Our connection is pure, but not our communication.

This relationship just makes me turn things over in my mind constantly, but is only one cog of many. My complications are dependent on what I’m tracking, and I owe you an apology for making you think you’re not on the face.

I am so sorry that when you came to me with what you were going through, I reacted poorly. I was having a bad day and I exploded. A laundry list of what you were going through with no thought to what I was going through made me crazy, because it was just reinforcement of the last eight years. I express needs, you express avoidance. I was frustrated that nothing was changing no matter what I did. I thought you were blind to something that has been in place since our inception. That the things we share do not go away when we don’t speak. We are making things worse for both of us, convinced we’re right and without each other. It’s stupid, but I’ll live.

The reason, though, that I was upset is that I could have written the essay on what you were going through. I do not take my needs lightly where you are concerned because your time is more objectively valuable than mine (during business hours). I have to weigh how I feel before I talk to you because I pick my battles carefully. I don’t try to goad, provoke, or scold you. I agonize over every decision because I have to think “does this matter right now compared to what she’s doing?” There will never be anything in my life as important, comparatively, so by the time I’m brave enough to lay something out with you, I’ve thought about it for weeks.

Every decision where you are concerned comes with complications, and I’m one of the people that can handle complicated. What I cannot handle is a conflict between two people where only one person says anything. You explained to me what you were going through, but ignored everything I said so I felt unheard after years of saying the same thing.

While you’re off thinking I’m a judgmental dick about everything, here’s what is actually running through my mind:

Where’s she going? What’s she doing? Does she have all her meds? Where’s Michael on this? Did she get that weighted blanket? Are the girls going with her this trip or is she on her own? Is a driver picking her up? What’s his story? When is wheels up? When does she land? Will she have e-mail in-flight or will there be crap going on? Don’t forget to tell her you love her when you know she’s going to be in the air.

This type monologue has been running every day for 10 years, and intensifies when I know it should. I know you don’t necessarily like it, but I remember pleading with you- that you need someone to care about you and could you just let me? Please? I always want to take care of you and I’m sorry I haven’t done it more often.

Limiting our interaction stops me from feeling unwanted, but it doesn’t stop the monologue because we fucked up and we’re married now- without me ever being able to explain why I mean what I mean to anyone other than you, and so far you don’t get it, or you really, really, do and that’s why you don’t want to talk about it. My job is to be lost in your mind. To be the best at separating what can go into the character of Supergrover from what can’t leave the building. I am afraid that I’m the worst.

The simplest answer would be to just stop writing about it, and I say that to myself every single day and realize I can’t go anywhere else. In this space, I have complete control of the narrative. I can relax and breathe, because no one else can respond. I mean, they can. People leaving comments is fun. I mean that Bryn and I aren’t going through each other’s comments and responding on the other’s behalf. I tell a story, people only talk to me.

I am not just writing the you in the entries, but the you in the comments. The you that exists in my world vs. the you that exists in yours. It’s never going to go away and we are both cutting off our noses to spite our faces by pretending we can walk away as if nothing happened…. but that’s not the problem.

The problem is that you absolutely can walk away like nothing happened, shooting emotions like metal spikes while I’m telling you that nail guns fucking hurt. By the time you told me everything you were going through, you told me there was no space for me in a way that meant change. That I could deal with things as they are. Period.

It cannot be the whole story. I know it. But you should understand that you walked into this willingly. I don’t need you to say you’re sorry and disappear into the ether. I need you to accept the reality of the situation and say “what’s next?”

There’s no one else for me and you knew that’s what would happen- because it happens every single time. The information becomes more important than the connection. I do not say that to guilt you at all; there will be others, just not ever again in the same way. It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for at least seven years (now eight).

Nothing about our situation is wrong and bad. I love you in a way I don’t have the capability to love anyone else, and that makes me feel unique and special in a way I didn’t before. My worth on the planet doesn’t come from you, but the perks to living here sure do.

No judgment. No guilt. I just can’t engage anymore because I can’t communicate where you can hear it.

If I send a letter by publishing it here, it’s because I don’t have any expectation of it being read. I don’t want to open the door to more fighting. I want you to be at peace, even if I’m not it.

We told each other we loved each other once upon a time. Now, that check needs to cash. I’m just not going to wait at the bank all day, leaving empty-handed at 4:00 PM.

But know that if we agree to meet, I’ll be in the lobby with your coffee. I’m tired of feeling crazy for doing exactly what you need me to do. I’m just working without a net, and afraid.

Until my mind quiets, and the shadows reveal your face…. contemplative because I’m lost in your mind.

Yours,

Leslie

Writing a Letter

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ 3 Comments

Mel told me that she looked forward to my food entries, and I told her that’s because I’m writing her a letter in every single one of them, because even from across the world, she can catch what I’m throwing. She is a chef, the level above me, which means that if I put down a steak, she’ll stand at the expo window and bitch at me even though she knows that a steak takes 13-18 minutes and the ticket was just put in 30 seconds ago please for the love of God make it stop make it stop…….. Kidding, of course I’m kidding. But in the ballet on the brigade, she’s an artistic director, caught between letting me play and impressing the owners before we do a new menu rollout that will hopefully have something I created on it.

So, since every food entry is a letter to her, here’s a real one.

Dear Mel,

I remember that summer is the worst. My first job was in Portland, Oregon where it is both hot and wet in August. There was no air conditioning in the kitchen, and we kept the back door open all the time. Our customers were so bold they’d try to go through there no matter how often we told them it was illegal, even more after they’d already been drinking. If a fight was going to happen at the pub, it was going to happen in front of us, because the back door faced the very tiny parking lot. I was always so glad I worked there, because it was a guaranteed parking spot if you showed up for your shift instead of trying to come in later just to hang. Of course it was my favorite bar. That’s where I actually got meals that someone I knew cooked and it wasn’t me. However, if I hadn’t been drinking, I could go back into the kitchen. If that was the case, every cook knew it.

I’d order something and I would hear a yell from the back…. even from my ex-wife, which made it funnier….. “LANAGAN! Come cook it yourself!” Busted. I figured out that ploy real quick. Clock out and go IMMEDIATELY to the bar and take a shot of something. Anything. Quick, they’re coming! I want a burger and I am not going to stand there in no air conditioning to get it. Do it yourself, Cat Cora.

That was the restaurant where I learned the most, because I was in the kitchen with people I trusted both as coworkers and guinea pigs. If I came up with an idea, Drew would improve it and so on.

When I was at the pub, I did brunch almost every weekend, where there I made pancakes the way you make them. Light, airy, except with a bit of hazelnut fluff. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to pastry, I assure you.

If you ever do come to DC, I have to take you to Milk Bar CCDC. It was a concept built by the woman who, I believe, is the best pastry chef in the world and if you have a chance, come study with her. She’s called Christina Tosi, and she’s one of David Chang’s best friends. Dave had already had success with momofuku, and gave Christina the money to start Milk Bar. Therefore, in both New York and City Center DC, they’re right next door to each other and Milk Bar supplies momofuku with desserts.

Their cereal milk soft serve is divine- not too sweet because it’s made from plain corn flakes.

I am certain that you can get Milk Bar delivered for cheaper than you can come here yourself, but nothing tastes better than a fresh ice cream cone, and I’m not sure they ship in in pints, anyway.

Milk Bar also makes some of the best cakes on record, but they also make a corn pie that’s the most popular thing they sell. To be honest, I’ve always been obsessed with the ice cream and cake aspect. I haven’t had time for pie. But I know Christina’s work well enough that I will shove anything she made into my face no questions asked.

I am less interested in being a pastry chef than knowing a pastry chef. 😉

The closest I’ve gotten to pastry is pantry, where I helped make ice cream bases (bacon, cafe au lait, banana putting, buttermilk [which was actually aciduated milk and froze up like cheesecake], creme brulee, and beignets. It was Cajun food, but a very French execution because my chef and sous were classically trained.

The one exception was the jambalaya, which was served as a risotto and so good it would make you cry. It makes me cry to think that the restaurant doesn’t exist anymore, because it was one of the most exciting times of my life.

One Monday night my coworker, Trina, and I got a comment card that only said “Hot. Lady. Chefs.” And of course you know now my life is complete. No additional compliments necessary for the rest of my life.

Cooking has also been an intro into meeting people I never thought I would meet, because powerful people don’t want to talk about power.

They want another pancake.

Maybe one of these days we’ll take over the world as line cook and pastry chef. Until then, we will have to settle for fantastic food conversations and reminiscing about “the life.” I hope you do get back in the kitchen eventually. I will live vicariously through you. I can even teach you how to flip shit.

I think your dishwasher’s about to quit.

Love,

Leslie

I Had Enough in a Good Way

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I learned something today because Supergrover came to me to say that she’d read all that she needed to read- and said that I cast her as a villain. Nothing about why I call her Supergrover, why she’s my beautiful girl, why she is light and dark in one gem. She sees me as writing her as flat, when I think of her as a spectrum. I almost quit writing, because I thought, “if I can’t do her justice, what hope do I have of anyone else? She’s lived inside me for 10 years.” It hurt like a bitch, because she focused on one entry where I was angry and not any of the others. Not the letter to Michael. Not the entry where I said I thought she was the face of God. She sees what she wants to see, and I cannot fix that for her. I do not want her to see herself as the villain in my story. I want her to see why it was so important for us to have met at all. If someone is determined to misunderstand you, let them. There’s no changing their minds.

I didn’t do anything but think about that letter for hours, like I knew I would. But I realized that she proved my points on a number of levels. Nothing said “I’m really sorry you’re hurting, let’s fix it.” By the same token, she thinks she’s the villain in my story and a flat character and her personality shows across my stats. I wasn’t lying when I said that she was the Aunt Voula. She will be your favorite. When I write about her, I feel so deeply that you will, too. Some of my best work that has connected with people came from me looking at our relationship for everything it is worth (still worth?).

I told her to keep reading. Keep absorbing.

I need her to know that what she said in her letter didn’t clear up anything, and also made me feel bad for needing anything… while at the same time having so much empathy for her situation that I overfocused on it. I didn’t need the primer on what she was handling emotionally. I could recite it, chapter and verse. I needed her to trust me, love me, see me.

She did not see me. She saw her in the most negative things I wrote and not in the most positive. That is not my call. I have never and will never love anyone like this again. She is unique, perfect in her imperfections, and I will always wish that things had ended differently. If she’s willing to listen, I’m willing to talk. What I don’t want is to end up in the same place next year.

I got a haircut today. The hardest part was not sending her a picture.

But I did hear from her, and despite everything I am in love with her words. It doesn’t matter what they are, because they bend and challenge me.

She lives in my ink, in the spectrum of color that has defined our relationship. I am sorry that she only sees in grayscale. I don’t love this. I miss her terribly. I just can’t anymore, really, because when I miss her I place hope in something that I think is there? There should never have been a question mark. I told her point blank that I feel helpless about the situation, not that I am painting her as a villain. That I’ve owned everything. I cannot do anything more or better, and she will not lay out her thoughts and feelings so that different patterns can emerge.

I hope for our sake that they begin, but love does not depend on the recipient. I get to love her whether she loves me or not. Even if it doesn’t mean anything to her, it means everything to me.

I smiled down at that e-mail for a long while, knowing that no matter what came of it, even nothing at all, I had done enough work within myself not to get rattled. She focused on thinking that she was a bad character.

I didn’t tell her she’s everyone’s favorite.

There’s a Crazy World of E-mails in This Crazy World

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

I have loved e-mail since I first used it in the mid-’90s. Typing was so much easier than handwriting, and to me it had the same heft. It allowed me to “think in longhand” because e-mails felt like actual letters as opposed to text messages. I was not particularly fond of my handwriting (still not, really), and because I was also on IRC, I had to learn to type very, very fast to keep up with the conversation. Hunt and peck was so slow that by the time I hit Enter, what I was responding to was already five minutes gone. DeletedI started touch typing by watching my friend Luke. It was basically osmosis. Now I’m so fast that I can literally type an entire paragraph with my eyes closed, as long as there aren’t too many numbers. My fastest typing test was 100wpm with six errors.

Now, I hover around 74 perfectly. It’s the entire reason I carry a Bluetooth keyboard around with me everywhere. I can’t text for shit. As I was telling my Facebook friends the other day, if I don’t have a keyboard with me, you’ll be watching those three little bubbles for a half hour (and you better not be surprised if you only get back “k,” because most likely I’ve typed a paragraph and then hit something with my hand and accidentally erased it, too enraged to do it again). So, of all ways to communicate, I love the blank screen in front of me. I use Gmail exclusively, with occasional ventures into Hotmail to retrieve ancient messages. 21st century archaeology at its finest….. Hotmail is old school, but I still feel infinitely superior to those who use AOL. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. There isn’t much in this world that makes me feel superior. Let me have this one. I do, however, like the Hotmail interface, because it reminds me of old-school Outlook (before the ribbon).

I switched to the Gmail suite when I learned that ads were few and function was overwhelmingly good, even with a basic web interface. Most of the time, though, I set it up in Evolution or Thunderbird with Lightning and Provider for Google Calendar so that it catches all of my appointments, as well. However, Thunderbird does not have pop-up notifications unless it’s running, so I don’t use it for anything, but I also plug my e-mail account into Mail for Windows 10 so that Gmail is integrated into system notifications. When they go off, I then open my client of choice.

This tiny dissertation on e-mail is brought to you by the movie Love, Simon. Basically, I spent most of it saying to myself, see! E-mail does create real emotion! It was fascinating to watch feelings evolve the longer the e-mails went back and forth.

It was horrifying to see that homophobia still exists… but it’s become nicer, I suppose. For instance, coming out is still a big damn deal. Straight people don’t have to come out. Straight just is. In an ideal world, gay would be the same. But parents cry. I have no doubt that some parents wonder where they went wrong, as if it’s somehow their fault for not being harder on their sons to gravitate toward boy things and their girls to gravitate toward girl things.

It doesn’t work that way. I have plenty of lesbian friends who played with dolls, still wear a face full of makeup, and spend an hour on their hair. I have plenty of gay friends who played football and joined the military.

As a sidenote, I also know straight girls that have turned out every bit as military jackass brotard and straight men who love Broadway and tote bags. In the end, we’re all just people, and the spectrum is large.

I think, though, that gay men have it harder than lesbians, and that’s because in this society, it’s not cool to be feminine, because you’re seen as a man submitting yourself to another man. We really have to examine that prejudice, as if seeming feminine is the worst thing in the world. I think that some people are homophobic because they’re misogynistic. I could be wrong, but it’s probably a fair assumption.

I also think that since more and more people are coming out every day, straight people have this idea that you can catch homosexuality like a cold. It’s not the number of gay people that’s changed. It’s the number of people that are willing to tell you they’re gay, because they’re not afraid of you turning them in to the police anymore.

It is also my opinion that gay and straight are subsets of bisexuality, and bisexuals are mostly invisible, even though they’re the majority. People tend to base their identity on what kind of couple they’re in, but wouldn’t seem gay or straight if you looked at their behavior over multiple years. Even I, someone who looks like a 15-year-old boy, would never be uncomfortable identifying as bisexual, because I never want to make it seem as if only the women in my life matter. In fact, I’d even go so far as to say that I am still mother-lion fiercely protective of my first boyfriend, and that feeling will never go away. We were the cutest couple in the history of the world, and that is a stone cold fact.

I identify as lesbian because I want a woman to be my life partner, because I can’t imagine spending my life with a man. I gave up on heterosexuality when I realized how I could utterly destroy a man’s heart with my inability to look into the future and assure myself I could still feel an attraction. It wasn’t because I didn’t care about them as a person. I just didn’t want us both to be stuck in an unhappy relationship, which I can see much more easily.

All of this is to say that there’s really no difference between being gay and straight, because we all go through the same stages in life. All couples talk about the same issues behind closed doors, with the exception of procreation. That is a separate and expensive process. But then everything returns to being the same after the children arrive, because all parents speak the language of Cheerios and bath time.

Love, Simon bothered me…. that coming out still rattles people’s cages. Simon doesn’t want to at first and still views it as a secret. Once Simon does come out, his parents take it well, but still cry and feel like it’s A CONVERSATION. He’s still bullied at school. The movie is tempered with a lot of love and support for him as well, but the problems I experienced from 1992-1996 are all still there…. although I didn’t have a girlfriend willing to come out, so in a lot of ways, my experience was similar and different. I was this blabbermouth activist with a girlfriend who treated me….. Ummm, badly is not quite the right word, but I did feel hidden like a cheap mistress. I put up with it because it wasn’t like anyone else was out and proud. I was it.

That slowly changed once we graduated, but by then the relationship was mostly over, anyway…. like most high school relationships…. earth to straight people.

Just like Simon, though, I was outed to my entire school at once when someone taped a flyer to my locker talking about “scary lesbians” my freshman year. I was mortified because it was the only time my ex-boyfriend and I went to the same school, and I wish I’d been given the opportunity to talk about it privately with him before the rest of the world knew. I think we maybe had one conversation in which I told him I thought I could be in love with one woman, but it wasn’t THE TALK that said this is who I am now. I don’t have one isolated crush. I was embarrassed to talk to him because we’d just broken up about six months earlier, and he was embarrassed to talk to me for completely unrelated reasons. So this boy that I loved more than life was suddenly not my friend anymore. It took a few years, but now it’s on like Donkey Kong, and he only lives about three and a half hours away.

The opportunity to come out to my parents was also taken away by my high school counselor, and I didn’t learn this until I sat down to have THE CONVERSATION with them and they told me they already knew. I can’t decide whether it was a relief or not, and it’s over 20 years later…. Additionally, this same counselor did nothing to punish the kids who bullied me or prevent it from happening again by saying, well, what did you do to provoke them? Ummm, I just exist?

I was bullied way more at HSPVA than I was at Clements, which was also a shock to my system because HSPVA is located in the most liberal part of Houston and Clements one of the most conservative. Maybe there was a lot more going on behind my back in which I just wasn’t aware, but for the most part, I was just seen as eccentric, which is definitely not an untrue statement regardless of orientation. My favorite conversation of the whole year was, do you wear that rainbow necklace because you’re gay or because you’re an idiot? Being outed at HSPVA and the homophobic kids being merciless in their hatred of me was much, much worse. I wrote about my experiences at HSPVA in Creative Writing at Clements (see last link), and my teacher said that it was too private to share with the class…. which also made me feel different, even though I wasn’t.

E-mail was a way for me to connect in the air with people who weren’t out on the ground. In recent years, it’s been a safe place to be who I am with people I truly adore, even though e-mail is the only chord that runs between us… because now, being who I am does not include sexual orientation as this wholly other thing. Straight or gay, we all just love writing letters, and that’s the thing. It’s a stranger on a train, often easier than talking to people in real life. Letters to people who don’t know the people in my life mean much because they’re not trying to be friends with my friends, so they’re solidly on my side. It creates real emotion because of that very fact. They see everything through my lens, because they’re only getting my side of the story. Therefore, they’re rooting for me even when I’m clearly wrong.

The best part is having a long-term pen pal. I’ve been writing to some of them since my college years.

I would have liked to see Simon and his pen pal remain anonymous, or maybe a different movie altogether that is only about writing to people you don’t know. There’s a ton out there on catfishing, but few pieces of media that focus on real relationships created “in the air.” I am certain that movies and books on catfishing are more popular because they’re dark. News and art tend to run that way…. whereas lots of relationships created on the Internet are deep and lasting. They’re cherished friendships precisely because they’re not on the ground and not in spite of it.

For instance, it’s great to be able to talk to someone who doesn’t know your high school bullies, but has a lot of ideas on how to get back at them.

Love,
Leslie

Catching Up

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dear Mom,

You would love the snow that’s falling right now. I can just hear your voice on the phone telling me to make ice cream out of it…. but I don’t think it would taste that good because I’m out of dairy milk and vanilla. I’ve never had soy snow ice cream. I will possibly give it a whirl and see how it goes. Maybe Hayat has some vanilla I could borrow.

You’ve never had soy milk? Really? It’s delicious in coffee and on cereal…. brings out the nutty flavors in each. My favorite is chocolate soy milk and Cinnamon Life.™ No, Mom. Really. It’s good. I’d make you try it the next time I come to your house if you weren’t  so corporeally challenged.

Just like you, I am perpetually cold. I am wearing special long underwear from Uniqlo called HeatTech. The company is Japanese, but for some reason there’s a big banner on the front page that says, “From Finland with Love.” If I thought there was going to be more cold weather, I would buy that shit mañana (I can’t tell if it’s hilarious or terrible that you’re not going to tell me to watch my language). I am also wearing the American Giant™ rugby jacket that Dad got me for my birthday…. only it’s not called a “rugby jacket.” It’s called a Moto. Picture a double-weight hoodie without the hood and you’ve got it. Despite both of these things, I’m still shivering, but it’s not the clothes’ fault. I am my mother’s daughter.

It would help if I could get moving. I love the cold when I’m dressed for it, and I’ve linked up the stuff I’m wearing for my readers because even though this is Old Man Winter’s last ditch effort, the next freeze will be here soon enough…. and I am definitely warm enough outside. It’s not really the cold. It’s that I’m not moving…. just sitting here typing, like the lovable geek I’ve always been.

Going for a long walk to help me sweat would improve my situation dramatically. However, it is actively snowing and I hate it when the precip gathers on my glasses and renders me more blind than usual. The timing of everything is off. Did I get glasses before or after you died? I think it was before, but time is just so malleable that I’ve forgotten. Wait. No, it was before. So you did get to see my cute little frames. I just wish I could remember what you said about them, because new glasses would not have passed without comment.

Now, I have a collection of them. Glasses are the new earrings. I even have some that make me look like a writer, so even when it feels like I’m just faking it, I still look the part. All I need now is a tweed blazer with elbow patches…. you know, for the jacket picture on the novel I’ve been working on for years and sometimes think will never be finished. At least the grey in my hair is coming in. It seems as if all authors have the same picture- jacket, glasses, grey at the temples.

I have discovered that I am, in fact, terrible at fiction. There are plot holes all over the place that you’d see coming a mile away because I don’t know anyone who’s read more books than you. It makes me hope for you that heaven is a big library, even though God knows you’ve already read at least half of them.

I’m starting that process, the one where I read just damn everything I can get my hands on, regardless of storyline. It doesn’t matter. Romance, science fiction, biography, autobiography. Not only am I enjoying myself, I’m working my way up from volunteer to paid reviewer at a book club web site. I keep thinking about how much you would have loved the recommendations on what to read next…. some of them have been quite good. In every case, the novels have been solid stories, but what would have driven both of us up the wall is poor editing. It’s always a shame when the content is so good and you can’t really concentrate on it because your mind is running a thousand miles a minute thinking “no comma there,” “comma needed here,” and “what the hell does that sentence even say?” With those reviews, I am not generous with stars, but I make sure to tell my audience that the content is good. I sometimes feel like a teacher reading a child’s work, because in my reviews, I have to report the number of errors I find…. but only up to 10. With some of the books, I could go on for pages.

It was a good move on your part to become a music teacher. If you’d chosen English, I don’t think you would have had any hair left by retirement.

Speaking of which, how is it that you were a music teacher your entire career and I still can’t read bass clef?

I forgive you.

Love,

Leslie

 

 

 

There’s No Present Like the Time

~ Leslie Lanagan ~ Leave a comment

Dear Lindsay,

This year we both face our first birthdays without Mom, and I’m sorry I let you down. Big sisters are supposed to do the really hard stuff first and tell their younger sisters about it so they don’t have it quite so rough. I’m so sorry that because of the way the calendar falls, the tables have turned. I can’t imagine what it’s like to celebrate the day Mom did all the work when she’s not there to enjoy it. I am here to listen to you vent, but I am sorry that I can offer no words of support that would equal what you must be feeling.

But I can tell you that when Mom told me she was pregnant with you, it was the happiest day of my life next to meeting you for the first time. I was too young to understand exactly what “pregnant” meant, so Mom and I spent my bedtimes reading books on “the birds and the bees,” and what it would look like to be an older sister. I wasn’t there for your actual birth, but I remember Mom telling me that she was so surprised that her obstetrician, Dr. Ritter, stayed in her room with her all night, the first to see your seven pound, nine ounce glory.

Our age difference is larger than a lot of siblings I know. I may have not had the specifics down pat, but I did know that our family was getting a new little person… one in which I was old enough to learn to take care of, making sure that your bottles were just the right temperature and your diapers always fresh. Just so you feel safe about this, it was all under adult supervision.

My first real memory of you is dad picking me up so that I could see you through the nursery glass at Methodist Hospital… and then everything fades until a few months later. You were sleeping soundly, and I sneaked into your room and put a teddy bear under your arm.

By then, we were living on Galveston, and I remember that every time we went to the beach, you would approach the water cautiously, and as the waves rolled in, you would run away from them, yelling “don’t! Don’t! Don’t!” After the crash, there you went, running back into the water just enough for it to lap over your toes.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I started kindergarten the September after you were born, and I remember you and Mom coming to pick me up every day at Parker. It was the highlight of my day to see you in your Muppet Babies leotard and tights, complete with headband just like Jane Fonda.

After that, my memory goes to Baybrook Mall, where we had an airbrushed sweatshirt made for you that said “HYPERWOMAN” in a jittery font. You wore it until it was in rags, because it was you. Getting you to be still in any capacity was (and is) beyond my capabilities. But when you made the choice to sit still with me and actually talk, it meant more, because I knew how much effort it was taking on your part.

The next thing that comes to mind is the chicken pox story.

You got what you called “the chicken pops,” and Mom made a cake that had a little blonde girl with red hots all over it and invited all the kids who hadn’t had it yet for a party, because their parents were eager to get it over with, too. I admired your strength, because it was the worst case I’d ever seen. You had them both externally and internally, the most uncomfortable being down your throat. But did that stop you? Nooooo…….. You were the life of the party.

Come to think of it, you are the life of every party.

Taller, more muscle mass, and faster than I’ll ever be is the inspiration that gets me out of bed in the morning. My younger sister is someone (I have) to look up to. Not only is your career inspiring, I’ve always been a little bit mad that you can reach the top shelf and I can’t.

But despite that “anger,” I’ll always jump in. I will never forget going on our cruise when you were three and I was nine. We were sitting on the ledge of a saltwater pool, right beside a sign that said “four feet deep.” You fell over backwards like a SCUBA diver, and I have never moved so fast. I jumped in without thinking. The water was so deep that I thought I might drown trying to get you to safety, not having had the clarity to think, “ok, I’ve got her. NOW what do I do?” We were so close to the edge that I swam under you, your diaper pressing against the top of my head, and kicked my legs to propel you upward. You popped up on the deck like some sort of magic trick (oh, hey, look…. flying baby) as I tilted my head and set you down. My neck hurt from the strain, but that was sort of the good part. It burned that memory into my brain, saving it for a time in my life that those years are slipping away.

Mom & Dad will never know how much danger we were actually in, because they weren’t there… but the superhuman strength of seeing your sister in danger is limitless. I will always be the tiger in your corner, claws sharpened, because now Mom will never be there. I can’t replace your loss, but I am always here to help.

I hope you know it’s a strength that will last a lifetime. I will always jump in, I will always protect you, I will always bite the ankles of your enemies… no matter the personal cost. This is because just by being around you, I become a better me.

Again, I’m so sorry that of all the things I didn’t do before you, going through this is one of them. I wish I had more to offer you than words on “paper” and a piece of my heart. It’s not much, but it comes from a completely unique store.

Love,
Leslie