a Journey

In a single weekend, a family tradition which has always been practiced since, I can remember really, evaporated into nothingness. Maybe it was just the final stage of the whole process since A.J died. After she died, Hari Raya was never quite the same. I’ve never admitted it to anyone before, but I still miss her. I can’t and don’t talk about her, like remember her, the person that she was to me and all of us, the way I still miss her cooking and going over to her place to chill out after school. I can’t say out loud the way I miss going out with her. I am scared of crying because I’m so afraid I won’t ever stop. I’ve never cried so hard since the day she died and I haven’t since. I still remember running to her when I fell down and she made me realize it really was okay to fall – she taught me to laugh at myself, and not blame the other cousins. She could laugh in the face of everything, including cancer. She was the one person I know, who died with a smile on her face. Or maybe I was just imagining it all. All I know is this:  we lost a part of ourselves that day. All of us did.

This Hari Raya, we didn’t celebrate it with them. I guess, work caught up with everyone, and they just wanted to rest instead of clean up after the open house. Maybe we were all really tired. And somehow, the open house, just took second place. Maybe, the final nail has finally been driven into A.J’s coffin. I think Death is not a single event; it’s a process that continues even after the final kiss has been given.

Just like the boys I knew from childhood are no longer the men I see today. I don’t know if we really know each other anymore. I guess we don’t really. A year ago, we danced on cheap champagne, believing in a future together, “forever and ever, love!” But as Christmas approaches, I don’t know who I’ll be dancing with this year. The colors that they painted my life with will always remain: red for the craziness, a blur of yellow lights as we flew down slopes with the wind hard blowing against our faces we had to shut our eyes, black silence for the night which always brought a peace with it as we sat anywhere, really, to breathe and stone… but, a lot of things, we have changed.

Now, she’s going too. As a girl, I ran home to her, because I missed the strength that could be found in her embrace. The alaga who enjoyed special treatment … dealing with this is not an option because she deserves better. But it’s 22 years I am saying goodbye to.

So what do you do when your world changes? How do you breathe properly without a dull ache in your throat that chokes and constricts?