The Day My Sister Died Three Times Because of Me
If I had a time machine, I would go back and say different words
This is the most painful piece of memory I have. It has been penetrating my mind since 1996. I can’t blame this trauma on generational inheritance or narcissistic abuse. This was something fresh, tailor-made for me — something of my doing alone.
If I believed in Karma — and I tend to think I do more and more as I age — then something dreadful must have come full circle back to me from a sin committed in a previous life so unspeakably capital that the only viable option to balance out the scale of the Universe was death. But it wasn’t me who had to die for this lesson.
It was my sister.
That day started as any other regular Tuesday. I was in sixth grade, and Sophie was in second. We shared a bedroom; my side was farther from the door, which meant I had to make my way through her chaotic mess to sit in my neat, clean, and orderly corner to do my homework. Her messiness frustrated the living shit out of me. It made me cringe whenever I looked at her clutter.
How can someone live like this? The piles of clothes, clean mixed with worn, her socks all around the floor, almost every piece had at least one hole on the front. I don’t know how she managed to…
