Pictures lay scattered across my living room floor. Memories like bullets penetrate my world, deform my realities, and fragment my heart. I am not prepared for my journey through the decades of our childhood and adult life together. Creating a world without her in it consumes all my energy. Remembering my dismissed memories, regrets, and guilt unnerves me. I. Am. Ashamed. My mother asked me to create a slide show and scrapbook for my sister’s funeral. Laurie isn’t dead. Her doctor diagnosed her with congestive heart failure after a frightening trip from her group home via ambulance to the ER.  He said she could die in a week or up to a year. It’s been five years. Mom is worried. She sees her strength diminishing. She wants to be prepared, so she solicits my help.

While looking through the pictures, I think of all the things I want to say to my sister. Things she may not even understand, but I know I am not giving her enough credit. So I put my pen to the paper and bleed across the pages of our shared childhood.

I am sorry you were born too soon. As your breathing labored within the incubator walls, no one noticed it stopped, seizing your brain into a lifelong submission. Daddy cried when the nurse put me in his arms for the very first time, but not as much as the day they told him you had cerebral palsy. His heart broke. He often carried the blame as if it were some punishment from God for conceiving me before marriage. It was my fault.

I am sorry we shared a vastly different childhood. My first steps came just before your birth. I toddled through the house to the delight of mommy and daddy, but then you came and everything changed. I reached my growth milestones; you didn’t roll over, sit, crawl, or anything else a healthy child should do.  Our house became a silent tomb. I no longer ran and played with daddy. I sat in the corner quietly building a defensive wall with my wooden blocks, one that would protect me from the emptiness I couldn’t articulate while you became the center of their world. I never understood it wasn’t a matter of choice. My heart cried out for the assurance I was still loved, their little girl. I knew you were, but I wasn’t you. I wasn’t “heaven’s special child.” It was my fault.

I am sorry I wanted you to disappear. If you went away, I would stop being afraid of you. When seizures overtook your fragile body rocking your crib in the middle of the night, a suffocating anxiety forced me to retreat to a dark place, a place I never left. Every time my hands trembled, I feared my body would convulse like yours. I never wanted to lose control, ever.  When they finally sent you away to Crotched Mountain School in New Hampshire, I felt a sense of relief. I finally had mommy and daddy all to myself. I could breathe again, but then shame crept into my dreams at night. I was nothing, a horrible big sister.  They sent you away because of me. I wished you would disappear, and you did. It was my fault.

I am sorry I released the brake on your wheelchair. Your immobile body tumbled down the concrete steps to the pavement below while I stood in shock at what I had just done. I cried as much as you did. Mommy said your wheelchair protected you. I still felt bad. But mommy and daddy shouldn’t have left you alone with me, something they often did. I remember the first time too. The telephone receiver laid on the table on the nightstand between our beds. I could hear them laughing as they played cards with the dentist and his wife who lived in the house next door. I cried every time your body stirred. I didn’t want something bad to happen to you on my watch. I didn’t want your body to shake. I didn’t want to be alone with you, so I screamed to make them come home. They did, and I knew I ruined their fun, their diversion, something that rarely happened. It was my fault.

I am sorry I terrorized you. Do you remember the nights we lay in bed, and I would tease you about the squirrels coming down the attic stairs to eat you. Scratch, scratch, scratch on the wall of the upper bunk. “Do you hear them, Laurie? Here they come to get you.” The minute you started screaming, I’d say, “Shh, I am only kidding. They’re not coming.” I didn’t want mommy and daddy to spank me for scaring you. As soon as you quieted down, I’d say it again. “They’re not coming YET,” as I started making the scampering sounds again. To this day, you are afraid of squirrels. Mommy and daddy don’t know why, but we do. It is my fault.

I am sorry I resented you when Mommy and Daddy sent me away to Aunt Marie and Uncle Dave’s house. Something happened to mommy, but no one let me in on the secret. Letting you stay and not me, hurt my feelings. Our cousins had the chicken pox. Guess who got them? Me! Itchy red blisters all over my body, and I didn’t have mommy to take care of me. Aunt Marie rubbed the calamine lotion all over my itchy rash while you had mommy all to yourself. Later, I found out Mommy and Daddy did it again. They had a baby girl who was born too soon. Mommy’s body still wasn’t ready. It was my fault. 

I am sorry I didn’t love you enough. Tearing down walls built with brick and mortar is hard. But even the most fortified walls crumble, and I feel it happening.  Mom and Dad made me your guardian, a foolish thing to do. Trusting me must have been hard. I haven’t exactly been the poster child for the perfect sister to a developmentally disabled sibling. It’s my fault.

I am sorry you had breast cancer. I wish I didn’t have ovarian cancer too, but it was the first time the world revolved around me. I was the center of mom and dad’s attention. Mom drove seven hours every three weeks to take care of me after chemotherapy. She took care of my children, cleaned the house, and drove me to appointments. When mucositis set my throat on fire, she made me tapioca pudding to soothe the flames. Before I shaved my head, she held back my hair when I threw up after chemo treatments. Like the day of my birth, dad cried like a little child when mom told him he had to come because I wasn’t doing well. The chemotherapy nearly killed me; in fact, when I experienced anaphylaxis, a team of medical personnel, along with a crash cart, stood by my bedside waiting for doctor’s orders. Cancer changed my life. It changed yours too. I couldn’t believe it when you received your breast cancer diagnosis. I wept for you. I didn’t want you to experience what I went through. I didn’t want you to feel sick. I didn’t want you to lose your hair. I didn’t want you to die. I will never forget the day I came to see you after your first chemotherapy treatment. When you saw me, your wailing cry brought the entire staff to your room. You cried because you knew I understood. I cried right along with you just like the day I released the brake from your wheelchair, except this time it wasn’t my fault.

You see Laurie, I was born breech. Mom repeatedly told me the story. As usual, I was the stubborn one. I sat in protest in our mother’s womb, buttocks against her birth canal refusing to leave the soothing sound of her heartbeat. My crooked tailbone speaks of the brutality of my delivery. A hand, like the forceps of God, reached into our mother’s vagina, twisting my body into the obedient child, a compliant child, submissively entering head first as all good children do. Mom had a fourth-degree tear. In other words, I ripped her to shreds. Three months after my birth, mom and dad conceived you. What I did to mom’s body made it so she couldn’t carry you to term, so I am sorry for the life you have been dealt. It was my fault.

As I sit on my living room floor with the pictures in my hand, a montage of memories flood my heart with a slide show reminding me of how much I love you my baby sister. I can’t fight it any longer.  It’s all your fault you made me love you as much as I do.

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Kathy Buckert holds an M.F.A in Creative Writing from Goddard College’s low-residency program in Plainfield, Vermont. Her work has appeared in The Blue Hour, Black Mirror Magazine, Silver Birch Press, Muddy River Review, Bookends Review, The Effects of Grace Anthology, The Creative Truth, Coffee and Crumbs, and other publications. She is an adjunct assistant professor at Monroe Community College in Rochester, New York. She is currently working on her memoir Order of Protection. http://kathybuckert.com