Today I got the phone call…

But I let it ring straight to voicemail. I knew the purpose of the call and I couldn’t bring myself to hear the words aloud, but it didn’t make the ache any easier. I had been out walking in the January cold, trying to take in the scenery so I could tell her. She didn’t get out much and what she could see from outside her hospital window was shitty. I always did this for her, I walked and memorized the way the street lights looked with snow falling around and infesting the lights. I wrote about the sights, in specific details so she would understand what I meant. I’d write about the shade of blue grey the sky was seconds before the snow began to flutter down. I’d photograph every scene I wrote about, and then when I got to her hospital room where she was cozy, well as cozy as she could get, in her bed, I’d take her hand in mine and teasingly hold the journal out.

“Show it to me, sissy!!” She would squeal and I could always see the excitement on her face. She lived the world through me and through her, I lived.

I’d tease her a little bit before actually starting the journal. I would sit right up next to her in a chair and read to her the stories of the world so she could imagine it herself, and she hung onto every word. Sometimes, she’d close her eyes, rest her beanie clad head onto my shoulder and just listen. Those moments--those moments I truly believed she was living in that world. In the world I’d created.

She always loved imaging it more than seeing the pictures, but she loved the pictures just as much. Today, I was going to print out all the photos from the last three years and put it in an album for her and surprise her with it tomorrow...but I had waited too long and now the pictures were all I had left of her.

Tears spilled over and ran down my face, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t care. I didn’t care how I looked, I never did now a days, not because I wasn’t motivated enough, but because Corrina found beauty in herself- in her bald head, in her dark bags under her eyes, and the thin skeleton like body. So, if she could see past that, see the good things, I always found myself beautiful, especially since she told me so.  But now, I couldn’t care for an entirely different reason.

I stared at the world through blurry vision, I let the feeling embrace me, and then I pulled out my journal.

January 9, 2019

The world is just as beautiful as it was yesterday. But it is a different beautiful. Today, the world is a blur of lights, of colors, of feelings. I’m sitting in the park, not too far from me is Lanky Cafe and along the road are street lamps. There is no snow fall tonight, just clouds of breaths from the people who scurry along with their lives, happily. I’m sat on the bench, the same as two weeks ago and the metal is cold to the touch. So cold I feel it through my leggings. It is dark, but I can see the trees perfectly. They’re bare and the stars sparkle in between them, littering them as though they are accessories. It is wet, the wetness in my eyes leaves the pages wet, leaves the world blurry, but I still find beauty in it all. If I were to stand up and walk just a few feet away the snow would crunch, loudly as though it is yelling at me for disturbing its peace and my feet would leave prints, a reminder that I had been here, enjoying the world and whoever would find them would be experiencing the same world, just in a different view.

The sky is a dark midnight blue, and if you stare right into it for too long the stars disappear, because if you focus on other things, the beauty fades away. But, the sky stays tonight, even if the stars don’t. I bet I could see you if I stared long enough, but it doesn’t matter if I can see you or not, I know you can see me.

There are cars around driving down the road, they seem so far, but they aren’t. They are what break the peace instead of me and crunching snow. The tires on the paved roads work in unison to the laughter from the group of friends that just exited the diner.

I put down the pencil and snap a photo of the laughing friends with my camera and then snap a few of the sights I described.

Tonight, I want to stray from the visible, I want to explain to you what it feels like to be here. It is cold, and my ears are numb, probably pink too. My nose runs and my fingers have begun to slow down because my muscles don’t like the cold, but I am surrounded by a happy, a sad, sad happy. The kind that makes the cold okay, to match how I feel on the inside, the world feels unfair and fair, but most importantly it feels full. My world, the one I exist in, is as empty as can be, but the world, the one you existed in, is as full as jam packed stadium--probably more.

I have to begin to view it differently, in a way that won’t remind me of you--well, the sadness of you. I have to learn to view it in a way that only beauty exists. Beauty only you taught me to see.

I had to stop writing because my tears were now full on sobs and the reality of things has finally came crashing down on me. I wanted to scream, yell into the midnight blue sky, that it wasn’t fair. She was only 8 years old, but not just that, she was my best friend. I have to refrain myself from screaming that she deserved to continue on this earth, even if she was fighting because she could get better, only if she had a little longer to fight. I screamed, mentally. I cried, outwardly. That night, I fell apart. On the bench where I wrote all my greatest stories, viewed the best sights, and the spot where my baby sister fell in love with the world despite never having sat in this spot a day in her life.

After a while I came to my senses, wiped away my tears and stood up. I ended up ruining the peace with my crunching feet, but it didn’t matter anymore, my peace had been broken, the rest would soon follow ensuite.

I walked to a store where I could load my pictures from my camera and print out the photos and I print them all out. I cried some more, I relived living the moments with her, and I collected them all up. I paid a hefty amount for all the photos...three years worth of them, but it was worth it.

As I stepped outside it began to snow...and to me...to me that felt like a sign. So, I leaned against the cold cement wall and opened the one voicemail that would crush me and I listened.

“Lydia, hi, it’s Dr. Marks, your parents have given me the permission to disclose this information with you. They figured it would be best to hear it from me. Well, as you know your sister was in pretty rough shape and wasn’t expected to make it through another week, but as you know, your sister is quite the fighter and after a few more tests that we ran but finally got the results of today, it looks like your sister will be around to listen to your stories for a bit longer. She’s a strong one, I can promise you that. And by request Corrina would like to see you as soon as possible. If you have any questions feel free to call me or just stop in. Have a wonderful night, Lydia.”

It ended and I dropped to my knees, crying. The world hadn’t given me all it had to share, I still had things left to write.

But first, I needed to get to my baby sister.