Metal fans may recognize the title as a line from a Seven Spires song, Succumb, off their new album Emerald Seas. This album has resonated with me so much, it’s all I’ve been able to play for the last couple weeks. While the album speaks of two star crossed lovers, it also speaks to profound love and profound loss.
Nine years. I don’t understand how the hell it is even possible I sit here writing this. Nine revolutions around the sun without my dear baby sister, Marissa Rose. The pain feels much more intensified this year for me. I suspect since last year I was emotionally constipated and broken, I couldn’t feel anything. I miss her all the time, that will never change regardless of my emotional state.
I recognized the imbalance approaching as I couldn’t find any cathartic relief from any other music except the new Seven Spires album. (Which is a total banger and you need go check it out.) Then last night I watched the below video and it set off a crying episode I haven’t had since before our dad died.
Grief is one of the few completely universal, yet wholly unique things to exist in our reality. It looks and feels different for everyone. The first year without my sister, I was a total mess. Probably the worst shape I had been in mentally since junior high when I struggled with suicidal ideation.
Thankfully, I had someone in my life (who is now no longer in my life–different blog) who kept me afloat and scooped me off bar parking lots when songs became too emotional during karaoke night. I know had I not had a constant source of compassion and companionship, my depression would have won.
I miss Marissa in ways transcending words. It is impossible to articulate. The acute pain of the longing though subsided around year 3 or 4. It stopped hurting to miss her. Until now. The pain has returned and I understand that is normal, the problem I have is the pain can be debilitating. And to people who’ve never experienced a traumatic loss, the debilitation makes no sense.
Fortunately, I was able to work from home this year. My employer recognized I could be functionable, but needed my space away from people. No one wants to watch some one write web code with Niagara Falls on their face. I’ve tried to work around people on this day and it does not work out for anyone. My emotions aren’t in check and my mood hinders morale.
If you know me personally and have known me a long time, you know hiding my emotions is not a strong suit. Zero out of 10 on that skillset. During Cryaggedon last night, I went to outside to talk to Nick about dinner and he saw the tears raging all over my face. He asked what was wrong and my response was “I’m (hiccup) fine. It’s nothing.” Even with it smearing a face full of make up I still tried to hide and was obviously unsuccessful.
I think about the kind of person Marissa would be, especially since most of her friends are now graduating college or getting married. I missed out on a first love, first kiss, and first heartache. I won’t get to be that wiser older sister she can confide in because some stupid boy broke her heart. I won’t be able to say “Screw him, let’s go get our nails done.”
When Marissa was born, everyone was immediately in love with her. Including dear, ol’ Dad (for more on that read the previous post). I saw how special she was at a very young age and one of my greatest fears was something would happen to her. Not because of Dad, no. She was the one person who was shielded from his abuse. He never laid a hand on her and he never yelled at her. She did witness the terror, so she still would have had the trauma from that. But he never directed any of his awfulness at her. I guess the fear now was more like a premonition? I’ve never thought into it that much and have only said it out loud once or twice since she’s died. The fear eventually subsided and left my conscious thoughts, but immediately sprung up the day she died before I knew all the details of the accident.
The day she died was a beautiful Saturday in May. It was warm, but not hot and a little breezy. I was making food (grilled barbeque chicken with mashed potatoes and corn) and getting ready to watch a movie (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). I looked at my phone, it was 4:15 PM and thought about calling her. We usually talked a couple times a week and I thought about calling her. I sat down with my plate, grabbed my phone and flipped it open (yes, I had a flip phone in 2011- it was damn stylish!) and almost dialed her. I stopped and said no I am going to eat first. This is 4:30ish. I finish and get ready to call her and my phone rings and this is when the world stops.
It’s my cousin Krystal calling to tell me there was an accident and I needed to call my mom. So I hang up and call Mom. Mom is fucking distraught and cannot form a functioning sentence. I hang up with her I call Krystal back no answer. So I call my friend Heather and ask for her help because I am starting to not be able to function. She somehow gets information. She tells me Dad and Marissa had been in an accident and to go my aunt and uncle’s house. No one had to say anything else. I knew at this point, someone was dead. Remember my biggest fear from a few paragraphs ago? Swift kicked me in the gut and I about fell over my balcony railing from having the wind knocked out of me.
I drive over, both Krystal and her sister are already there. I demand to know what in the ever loving fuck is going on. Everyone is crying no one is speaking. I am told to call my mom, again. I call her. All she did was cry and say one thing: Marissa. No sentence, no words. Just her name and hysterical crying. I dropped my phone (pretty sure I threw it at a tree) and tried to run out into traffic. My uncle grabbed me and just held on to me while I sobbed.
My aunt, Krystal and me piled into a car and drove up to the hospital where my family was at. So some background, I was living an hour away from my hometown and my other sister was an hour and a half away in another town at college. We get to the hospital and my mom was on the floor in the waiting room. A family friend who happens to be an ER doctor for another hospital was with her (thank you Dr. Bob!), so at least she wasn’t alone.
I stopped crying long enough to ask where Marissa was. Mom hadn’t seen her and Dad was still being treated. I looked at Mom and said “let’s go.” I couldn’t get her to move, she just kept shaking her head saying no. Dr. Bob helped me convince Mom to go back and see Marissa. She agreed and I managed to fireman carry Mom off of the ground and hobble her back to the room where the hospital had Marissa.
Had I not known she was dead, I would have sworn she was sleeping. She wasn’t mangled or messed up. There were only a couple of very small indicators. One her mouth was slightly open and her tongue was kind of sticking out (very true Marissa fashion, if you ask me) and the saliva had dried out around her tongue, crusting over. The second was a little bit of blood on her cupid’s bow, but honestly could have been from a bloody nose.
I probably made that trip three or four times back to see her before she was finally taken away to go to the State Medical Examiners office. The last trip I made was when Dad’s medical team said he could see her. Now if you knew my dad, you knew he was a burly and mammoth being of a man; however, the sound that came out of him when he saw Marissa on that gurney was inhuman. I can’t describe it, but I hear right now. It was the worst blood curdling squeal a person could possibly ever make and to hear it come out of a man who looked like my Dad was unfathomable.
My aunt, cousin and I stayed at the hospital for several hours. Marissa’s friends came to see us and they told me how much Marissa talked about me and how much she loved me. Marissa’s best friend though, my heart hurt the most for. She had lost her mom to cancer a couple years prior and now her best friend was gone. Jazz was the last person Marissa spent time with before she died. She got revel in being a teenager one last time. Dad had picked Marissa up from Jazz’s so they could go get Marissa some new softball gear.
The night eventually got late and I needed to go home. My aunt, Krystal and I headed back. When we got back to my aunt’s, Krystal asked if I wanted to stay with her that night. The answer was absolutely yes. We went to the bar down the road from my apartment to have one drink for Marissa. One drink turned into me so drunk I had to throw up and when Krystal rolled down my window, I missed my open window and puked down the side of her door. (Sorry again.)
The next few days after that are a complete blur. We planned the funeral, I picked her casket. Mom and my grandmother got into it at the planning table. I nearly punched an elderly woman in the face. Dad wouldn’t look at me. I was back home for a week and the first time Dad looked me in the eye was the day of the funeral and he said ” I can’t look at you, you look too much like her.” And for the first time ever in my life, those words shattered my heart.
I’ve done what I could to make her proud in the years since she has been gone. I’ve tried to make better decisions and not let my life end up in the gutter. To celebrate her five year anniversary, I ran a 10K. I finished dead last, but I finished. That whole year was a year of running and progress. It was also the year I met Nick. Now most of my honoring comes in the form of a fun make up picture inspired by her two favorite colors: purple and lime green. This year is no different. I try to challenge myself every time I do these looks (today & her birthday) and push the boundaries of my skills.
She was just starting to get into more feminine habits like makeup and hair right before she died. When we were kids, she never wanted anything to do with my makeup and her idea of doing her hair was throwing it in a bun. Which worked for her because she lived in her sports uniforms.
There is an old adage about how finding out how much people don’t like you, name a kid. Well also pick out a burial outfit for a kid and you’ll also find out. Mom decided to bury Marissa in her traveling basketball uniform and asked her teammates to come to the visitation in their uniforms. People did not think that was right and thought she should have been in something else. That girl LOVED sports more than anything. Her love for sports is the only reason I am at peace with the results of the accident. Had she survived, it was likely she would not have played sports again and that would have stripped the joy out of her life. And a Marissa without joy would have been worse than a world without a Marissa at all.
To my angel, I miss you beyond words. This acute pain is unbearable, but survivable. I will figure out how to keep on making you proud. Wherever you may be. I hope you are reunited with Dad and you have helped him find peace.
“I pray our stars align, so I might hold you one more time.” – ‘Succumb’ Seven Spires”I’ll bury you among the stars that litter the skies of my heart. Next to the moon you placed in it’s folds. So loving and so long ago.” -‘Bury You’ Seven Spires
To my friends and family, thank you for your love and support throughout this journey. Walking it for 7 years with only her gone was hard enough, but now I am having to relearn how to handle grief since her and Dad are now both gone. Your patience and understanding is something I will never take for granted.
One final special thank you. To Seven Spires.
You didn’t write Emerald Seas for me. But it feels like you looked into my heart and said all the things I’ve wanted to say for years. I could not possibly begin to thank you for the wonderful treasure I’ve found in your album. Thank you for your hard work and the beautiful result.