Loss

Loss

Today was my sister-in-law Joanne's birthday so we went up to Rockland to put some flowers on her grave. She would have been 26. It's been two years since she passed away and I still miss her every day. They say the pain of loss eases after time but I guess they mean a really long time. Because sometimes, at night, I think about the way she used to giggle or her smile or some crazy thing we did and it makes me laugh. But at the same time, it hurts like hell. An almost physical pain, like someone stabbed me in the stomach and I don't know whether to dry heave or pass out. And always, ALWAYS there's the guilt. That never fades. The guilt that everyone who isn't a sociopath feels, when someone they love takes their own life. I sit in the dark and wonder how I could have been such a bad friend, how I could have been so involved in my work and problems that seem petty in comparison that I never saw it coming. I think about all those times I picked up the phone to call her then put it down again, because I didn't want her to feel she had to choose between a friendship with me and sisterhood with her brother, who I was no longer with. I wonder if that would have made a difference. Then I remember that the one person who could have saved her, chose not to save her because deep down inside he didn't want her to be saved. He was embarrassed by her depression, by the fact that she didn't want to live without him. He just wanted her out of his life, so he could go on banging his slut without the guilt that he had his pregnant girlfriend, and later his precious daughter and the mother of his child at home. And I realize that despite my arrogance, there are some things in life that you yourself just can't fix. Like the pain a mother feels when the man she loves leaves her and their one-year-old daughter for someone else, a friend she trusted.

But even that knowledge doesn't help and I still feel the weight of my own guilt. I know that in the end it was her decision but part of me still can't accept that. Because she was my little sister from the moment we met, it was just one of those things, and I don't think the feeling that I failed her somehow will ever go away. And maybe it shouldn't. If nothing else, it reminds me of the most important things in life, my family and my real friends. In all honesty, I don't dream about the luxurious things in life anymore. I dream about safety and security and being able to take care of everyone I love. I just wish I'd done a better job of taking care of her. Instead I left her to a guy that everyone warned her from the beginning was bad news. Someone who because of his own insecurities tried to control her and change her and stifle her beauty, until by the end she was very different from the vibrant, happy-go-lucky person she had been when they met. Someone who even after she was gone, could not appreciate or even see who she had really been.

Okay enough sadness. You know how after someone's gone people always say "She wouldn't have wanted us to be sad like this?" That's very much true when it comes to Jo. She couldn't stand to see the people she loved sad. She was there through a very difficult time in my life and every time she'd see me cry, she'd start crying too. Just out of sympathy. I can feel her still sometimes, trying to pull me out when I start thinking about how much I wish she was still here. So in honor of that, I'll present my favorite Riss and Joanne moments:

1. Pictionary the night we met. My family lives in Cali so Dennis had brought me home for Christmas like some dog without a home, but it was pretty fun. Me, Jo, John, Steph, Diana and Keith got bored so we decided to play Pictionary. I am especially fond of Pictionary because I can't draw at all. So it always makes for interesting times. Jo was my partner. The words that stick out were "string" (which we won because I drew a tampon with an arrow pointing at the string) and "freeway." I drew a highway and then a dollar sign which I circled and drew a line across. Jo started yelling "No Money Way!!!" And I kept prompting her but she just kept screaming it. So of course Steph hears and says "freeway." And of course I started yelling myself in between fits of hysteria "WHAT THE FUCK is a 'No money way?!?'"

2. Jo decides one night that she wants us to go to Club Abyss, in fricken Sayreville of all places (if you're thinking it sounds familiar it's because Bon Jovi is from there). So we go to Club Abyss, which has a parking lot in a dirt canyon across the street by the way. I ask Jo how she's going to get in, being that she's only 20. She says she has a fake ID. We get into the line filled with people wearing lots of gold chains and I start wondering why the hell I agreed to this. But it doesn't matter because the bouncer doesn't let Jo in anyway, even though she's insisting the ID is real. Two days later at some bar, she brings out the same ID and I take a look at the picture on it. It's a white girl with blond hair.

3. The whole year she had been telling me about some guy at school who had been stealing her homework and notes, to give to some bitch that was too stupid and lazy to pass on her own. Sometimes, Jo would have to study the night before a test without her notes because the dumb bitch would deny she had them. One night, we ended up at the bar across the street from her school, with the guy who would steal her notes. I asked him what was up with the crap he was playing on the jukebox. He got all offended. 5 minutes later he came back and said if I didn't like the next song, I could slap him. I told him I'd take it, but that it was a stupid bet because I already told him I didn't like the genre of music he was playing (Woodstock-type shit.) The next song came on, of course it was a crappy one and I wound up and back-handed him across the table. Joanne cheered and then laughed about it for the next three years.

4. The time we played Spades at Kuen and Allan's from 9 o'clock at night to 7 in the morning. We were all delirious, we'd been tiredly laughing for no reason the last few games. I said goodbye to their piranhas, "Festivus" and "Therestofus" and Kuen told me to say goodbye to the feeder fish too, there were like a hundred of them. As I said goodbye to them, he grabbed a handful and tried to give them to me, saying I should just take them home with me. I ran and he followed, trying to stuff the fish down my shirt or in my pocket. I yelled for Jo to pack up my purse so he couldn't put them in there. She hurriedly grabbed my stuff and we ran out the door. The next morning Kuen called me and asked if I had his remote control. I said "Why the fuck would I have your remote?" An hour later, I opened my purse and lo and behold there was his big ass remote. I asked Joanne what it was doing in there and she replied "Sorry, I thought it was your cell phone."

5. All the nights after work playing Spades at her school, and all those Wednesdays at The Junkyard listening to the cover band Love Lies Bleeding. Simple nights filled with lots of laughter. That was the one thing Jo and I did the most together, laugh. She had the best sense of humor. I miss that girl.