Sixteen Years

When I turned sixteen, my sister planned a whole day for just the two of us. She wanted to make sure I felt special. Celebrated. And she wanted to be the one to make sure my day was perfect. That’s who she was. Someone who would do everything for a person she loved.

My sixteenth birthday was on a Sunday, and our planned adventure just wouldn’t work on a Sunday, so we celebrated one day early. That Saturday morning, the last day I was fifteen, we hopped into her van and headed toward the city. We kept driving, just a little further south. With our birth certificates in hand, we headed for the bridge.

There are at least a few things you can do in Canada without your parents at sixteen that you cannot do in the United States. Part of our adventure was one of those things, so we crossed the border. Less than an hour after we left our house, we parked somewhere by the river. She took me to lunch somewhere, and then we headed for the shop.

Late middle school and early high school was the age of piercings for me and my friends, and maybe for most young teenage girls at the time. None of us got anything wild, but every single one of us wanted our cartilage and belly buttons done. A few girls had eyebrow piercings, and that was it. We weren’t a particularly rebellious group of kids. We didn’t need to be. Our parents gave us the space we needed to grow up, but were there to help us if we fell.

Six months earlier, my parents gave me permission to pierce my belly button. My mom was going to take me, but then my sister told her how much she wanted to take me instead. So my mom asked me to wait, and I did. I got a second cartilage piercing out of it, which was it’s own bonus for my patience. But now it was six months later, I was a day away from sixteen, and my big sister and I were walking into the piercing shop in Canada.

She smiled at the tattooed man behind the counter and told him why we’d come. That it was my birthday, and this was my present from her. We went through all the details. Did I want the top or bottom done, which piece of jewelry did I want, how to take care of a fresh piercing. But then it was time for the paperwork and I pulled out my birth certificate. The man stared at it for a few minutes before he looked up.

My sister met his gaze, her eyes confident and sparkling. She smiled, then said the shop was closed on Sundays so we couldn’t come in tomorrow. A few minutes later, the man was dating the paperwork for the next day and we were continuing with my appointment. Fifteen minutes after that, two excited teenage girls, one with a fresh piercing, laughed at the memory while it was still a moment as they ran back to the car.

There is a picture hanging in my house that was supposed to be my sister’s picture. It’s a black and white photograph of the Detroit skyline, taken from a rooftop in Windsor. When I look at the picture hanging where it was never supposed to belong, I think of how much my sister loved her city. But I also think of that day all those years ago. A day when my big sister shined; in her element, on an adventure for someone she loved.

Sixteen years is a long time. An entire childhood, and maybe even a whole lifetime. That day in Canada was a day when my sister and I got to celebrate sixteen years on earth together. She had been around two more years than me, but we’d done life side by side ever since I showed up. Things stayed that way for a few more years. And then, they didn’t.

For the last sixteen years of birthdays, I often count the time by anniversaries instead. One year since my sister died, then two, and now sixteen since she’s been gone. Sixteen years without a hug that wraps you in her scent. Without hearing her voice or seeing her brown eyes dancing. Seventeen years of Thanksgiving tofurkey and seventeen birthday cakes that she’ll never taste.

In the beginning, when counting anniversaries was new, celebrating anything felt impossible. The whole world was dull and distant. Everything was muted by the terrible reality that was now life. Numb is an overly simple, yet decent way to put it. Any fleeting moments of laughter were followed by overwhelming guilt. It’s a dark and lonely place. But it’s also the only place that feels okay to exist in when the wounds are fresh.

There was one place for me that was different from the rest though. One place in my day where I could still feel the full drumbeat of life in my chest. A time in the day when each breath felt like something I was allowed to take. When I ran, especially when I ran hard, even the guilt and the anger stood on the sidelines. All that was left to feel was the pain.

Loss does peculiar things to a person. And in the aftermath you find out quickly if you are good at hiding your grief. Grief cripples your soul. It breaks every one of your limbs, wraps its hands tightly around your throat, then chains you to the floor. But to the outside world you can smile and they’ll believe you, as long as they don’t look too closely at your eyes. For better or worse, I excelled at pretending.

But when I was running, I didn’t have to pretend. The further or faster I ran, the closer my legs would take me to a place where I felt reprieve from the rest of life. For that time in my day, I could move the pain in my soul to the burning in my legs and the fire in my chest. For that time in my day I could make my outsides feel a little like my insides did, and breathing came easier.

Grief is no longer the world I live in every day. It was for a time, and then slowly it wasn’t. I no longer feel guilt with every sunrise or with every breath. These days I spent a lot more time feeling gratitude instead. But of course there are still the November-ish and every so often irrational pangs for what could have been. Wishes for a lifetime that will never be hers or mine.

So now, that’s what I do. When it’s the season of anniversaries or a day is tough for no obvious reason, I embrace pain and bring it to the surface. I like to feel it course through my legs, burn in my lungs, or scream in my chest. I like to feel it tingling just under my skin. Sixteen years later, this place is still a place where each breath comes easier and I feel the most alive. Sixteen years later, this is a place where I feel gratitude for what is.

Time does not heal all wounds. Time teaches you that you are strong enough to live with them.