Sometimes she
walked along the foggy bank listening intently to the sound of distant voices
shout and scream with laughter, as they echoed in the shadowy space of memory.
Once in a while she stood there watching and searching and feeling and seeing a
misty film of her past blaze before her eyes. She stirred quietly afraid to
disturb the movements of the figures who were oblivious to her steps. They
walked slowly and sharply running after each other, and then stopping once more
before the same pattern repeated itself like an inner setting intertwined their
hearts to move in coalition had been set.
She sat in this
space, afraid to disturb the innocent figures as they danced in her memory,
fast and slow they moved, chattering with familiar childlike innocence, he
passed her a treat and she accepted in shock disrupting the movement of their
feet-he had stepped outside their pattern-showing a brother’s loving heart to a
sister’s unsure smile. She accepted. And once more began their pattern of
screaming and dancing and running and hollering before the burly figure of
their Uncle wondered into this sacred space.
She watched all
the figures intertwine as they depicted fading memories that burn with the dim
glow of the past.
Her figure was
different though. It burned the brightest next to her brother’s before the very
faded shadow of her Uncle-a voice more than a form-taken first into death’s
tomb.
She looked at
her face-a face filled with the ignorant bliss of childhood-a face that had not
yet been scarred by pain, marred with grief, struck with death. And she hid
before her young form could feel the intense glare behind her back of a future
she did not want her to know yet-she did not want her to see yet the cost of his
death; if she caught her eyes, her sisterly instinct will detect something strange in the air.
So she shrouded
herself in their interactions. Watching, listening, glimpsing pictures in her
mind-feeling for her brother’s voice, searching for his calm gaze, his wide
smile, his sure footed confidence. He was the reason she kept looking back. The
reason she entered this place. Dim with the stain of death, pungent with the
stench of grief she still entered just to see his face.
And so she
watched him intensely behind the fog. His boyish limbs grew into the sturdy
arms of a man that caught his sister’s heart as she threw herself into him for
support. She watched their interactions. No longer children, but now older siblings
heavy with experience; a look conveyed that meant a thousand words. Once more she
sat down in this more recent space. It was not far behind enough for death’s
embrace to mar its form. She watched their frames as they interacted in that
sibling way-laughing, crying, shouting and lounging in each other’s space. A
deep bond had grown between them.
Here she felt
more comfortable because the tone was more familiar. She caught a glimpse of
his smile, a whisper of his words decorated the air, and she listened intently
to each and every one. Still she gleamed brighter; the illumination of life
surrounded her. But he grew dimmer, and dimmer and dimmer, as she stared and
stared and stared until he was no more.
And this was
when the tour ended. Death had grasped his form.
Through this gloomy space of memory lost and
laughter stained, she watched herself scream through the pain, her form
twisting and turning as she struggled through the wound that stung with such a
demonic ache. A woman who had
stared into death’s gaze-but was saved by the Savior’s grace. In that dark
place she was birthed; into the arms of purpose, she was led. And as she walked,
she stepped into her present form. More solid with strength because of the shock
of grief that had thrown her, she walked into herself, blowing the memory away
and facing the path before her.
But once in a
while, she went into that hollow space, searching and waiting for that laugh,
that came with his voice as his childish limbs once more ran around and around
chased by her wider form determined to catch him and make him fall-a sibling
bond-a love that remained pure-an instinct to protect one another that had
always spoken into their affection for each other.
Once more she
sat in that space, and they laughed with the joy of love and camaraderie until
he was no more.
She hid herself
in that place-determined not to destroy the picture more than death had marred
its form. Shadows of a fading past kept stubbornly together because of a
sister’s love.
