I heard a quote by a guy Banksy
that says you die twice, one time when you stop breathing and a second time, a
bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time. You have already
stopped breathing and I can’t fathom the fact that one-day people will stop
saying your name. Your name sounds strange as it comes out of my mouth.
Sometimes I whisper it under the covers. Other times I yell it so loud that I’m
sure you’ll be able to hear from wherever you are and come running with that
mischievous grin that is seared in my mind like a permanent stamp.
I hope that the names add up like
the points on the pinball machine we played around with in the general store
down the street. They will stay in the air and people will hear your name in
the wind whistling by their ears, or behind the water fall where you thought
the world would never hurt you. Once I’m gone, once everyone that ever knew you
is gone, you will still have to be here because I don’t think people disappear,
I don’t think thoughts or words disappear. Once something is here it has to
exist forever. Things change. You changed invisible and silent but you’re not
gone. Things don’t go and stop being. They go and they are somewhere else.
You held my hand that one time when
dad was yelling at us for spilling the paint and I can still feel it against
mine. You told me you’d never leave my side and it eased my sobs after I ran
under the porch when the kids at school made fun of my new haircut. Those words
spoken through the wooden gate that cold winter morning when we were fighting
still hurt because I knew I shouldn’t have pushed you off the sled. Those
things are still here in my mind, and you’re name is always on the tip of my
tongue. So you must not be far behind. When I go out in our favorite field I
know that you’re tagging along with Grandpa’s dog and you’re yelling at me to
slow down but I just can’t hear you.
I sure wish you would listen when I
yelled “olly olly oxen free” but I know that you have such a great hiding spot
and you’re just waiting for me to find you and see how cool it is. I’ll see you
one of these days, your messy curls peaking out from behind the hydrangea bush
in Mrs. Wallman’s yard or I’ll hear a whimper as you scratch your knee climbing
the Gingko tree behind the garage. I’ll be annoyed at first but then you’ll do
something funny and my face will break out in a smile. Nobody can make me burst
with laughter like you. I’m sick of feeling like I’m going to burst from
sobbing.
You can’t die twice because losing
you once was hard enough. The world needs you, any bit of you that I can put
out there. Hearing your name might not remind people of ice cream covered faces
and trains on the floor, it might not make them feel nostalgic for the feeling
of fresh independence that came with exploring the woods by our uncle’s cabin
but it’ll mean that you’re still here. Mom told me she named you after her
grandfather but when I saw a picture of him he didn’t look like he had smiled a
day in his life. Your name is full of something I can’t even describe and it
belongs to you and not the old man in that faded photograph. And it definitely
doesn’t belong to the boy in my class who pushes kids at recess.
When I say your name I think of
your face and the weird noise your nose made when you slept and the dirt under
your nails. I think of the way your footsteps sounded as you walked down the
hall to mom and dad’s room and how you changed your voice when you played with
army men. Maybe if people hear it they will know that it’s your name and maybe
it’ll be laced with laughter and happiness and they will want to make someone
smile instead of cry. And it’ll be because of you.
I’ll never stop looking for you or
saying your name. I’ll never stop listening for you outside the shed and
looking down the back hill where your tree fort used to be. Dad says that it’ll
be easier to deal with this if I stopped doing these things but stopping them
means I don’t have to do anything for you anymore and that the things in your
room belong to a stranger. It means there’s no one to share the blanket with on
the fourth of July and no one to sneak food to Marley under the table. It means
that no one will understand me while I’m brushing my teeth and there will be no
one to eat the cherry popsicles in the freezer. They’ll just sit there all
summer long.
God will understand if you come
back home. You don’t belong with him and he probably doesn’t even know how to
start a thumb war or do Indian burns. He doesn’t know your favorite cereal or
that you like thunder but not lightning. Come home before dinner because mom
doesn’t like you riding your bike after dark.
You still make me feel worried and
annoyed and loved and safe. You still make people feel things from wherever you
are and when the adults told me at the wake that they were sorry for my loss I
just told them that you’re not lost and you always end up coming back home
eventually. They all looked at me funny like I tried to make a sick joke but I
didn’t. The train tracks lead you right back from almost anywhere. You’ll come
home and when you do make sure you wipe your feet on the front mat because the
mud stains are still on the rug by the bookcase and sometimes Mom cries telling
me that she shouldn’t have spanked you for that.
I’ll try to do everything I can to
make the world know you’re still here but as much as I practice in the mirror I
can’t make the smile that you always put on when I was sad and made me feel
like everything was okay.
It’d be nice if other people could
see that smile too.
So one more time, come out, come
out wherever you are.
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