Give Sorrow Words
poem
Yesterday, I saw her grave for the first time in years— Linda Sue, my second- oldest sister, who died fourteen days after her birth and ten years before me. I want to remember why she died but that detail has left my mind. I'm sorry, Linda Sue, that this elegy is incomplete. I do know that you were meant to be adopted by a white couple who would've taken you away from your family, tribe, and reservation. You would've been a stranger to me. So, in this poem, I mourn your death but I also mourn the loss that I would've felt had you lived. As a child, I sometimes imagined that you'd survived and had been raised by that white couple in the big city. You became the fancy sister who slept in a huge bed surrounded by shelves that held one thousand books. You became the sister who always wore new clothes and shoes. You became the sister with a father who wasn't an alcoholic and a mother who didn't careen from depression to manic elation and back again. In my daydreams, you lived a better life than any of your siblings. And, yes, I imagined that you missed us, too, searched for us after you became an adult, and returned to the rez, returned to your tribe, and returned to your family. I imagined you walking through the front door, looking exactly like your brothers and sisters. Linda Sue, if you'd lived and had returned to us, you'd now be a tribal elder. You would've been the one who teased me about the urban Indian that I've become. When I visited the reservation, you would've frowned, brushed imaginary dirt off my broad shoulders, and asked, "Look how messy you are. Look at you with all that city dandruff fallen like snow." Then we would've laughed and hugged. Linda Sue, I realize that I wrote this poem to resurrect you yet again. I see you with your long hair flowing like a black and grey river. I see the wild joy in your eyes. I see you delighted to be alive and alive and alive.
My mother died at 43 of cancer when I was 10. Eventually I found out she’d gone through 2 miscarriages before I was born. She had made as graceful an exit as possible with the loving care of family and friends, particularly my older half-sister, an RN who walked away from a great job on the east coast to care for her in her last month. By the mercy and love manifested at that sad moment I was spared from profound darkness. I am more and more grateful as time passes and I gain deeper understanding of all that as I age. Now my sister, probably the true hero of my life, is declining from ALS. Though it doesn’t deprive all who suffer from it of their cognitive ability it is effecting her that way with progressive short-term memory loss. I visited her recently and concluded I might as well start mourning her now while we can still talk and see each other over the phone. Thanks for this elegy. I will keep it where I need it.
What I love about your writing is your honesty. Raw and lovely. Thank you!