Tears flowed out of my eyes, streaming down my cheeks. I felt hot and cold-hearted inside. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. Why did it have to be me? Life was going so well, until all of this happened. I wish I could go back in time and change everything from start to finish. I stood there looking at the ground where she lied. Her coffin was buried deep in there. There were flowers, cards and chocolates that would soon rot, all surrounding her grave. I looked to my right and my sister stood there in her white dress and flower in her hair, crying and wiping her eyes with her pink handkerchief. Her brown hair flew in the wind and stuck to her wet teary face. My dad was standing to my left. His face was all red, and his eyes pink. Tears filled his eyes but didn’t come out all the way. I could tell he was trying not to cry and he felt so hurt inside. I looked back at her grave and fell to the ground crying on my knees. I buried my face in my hands and sobbed harder than I have ever sobbed before. I felt someone hugging me from my left. I could tell it was my dad because I could smell his cologne.
“Everything’s going to be okay honey.” He whispered in my ear. I tried to believe him but I could tell through his voice, that it wasn’t true and it wasn’t going to be okay. It was never going to be okay. I felt him let go of me and stand up. I got up and wiped my eyes with the handkerchief in pocket. My sister stared at me with her bloodshot eyes. She tried to smile at me, but I just couldn’t smile back so I looked away sadly. I felt her smile fade away as she turned to look at the sunset behind us. It was a very hot evening that day. My tears and my sweat mixed in together on my face to make even bigger tears. Life was hard before and now everything just made it 10 times harder.
In the middle of the silence my dad spoke up, “I know this is hard for you two and me too, but we have to get through the obstacles of life and eventually move on to make her happy. I’m sure that if we make the most of our lives, she will be very proud of us and in heaven we will be able to see the happiest expression on her face.” His voice was very shaky and his words unsure. I looked up at him and he too tried to smile at me but I just couldn’t be the optimistic person I always was at that moment. I turned to look at my sister, who was staring at my dad smiling. She also, was trying to make things look brighter but I was just stuck in a black hole and instead of climbing myself out, I wanted to dig into it deeper and stay in forever. There was obviously no brighter side in that decision.
All three of us were in the car 15 minutes later. The roads were empty and it was very quiet. There was a faded mumbling coming from the radio that was turned on and the volume was low. I looked out of the window. The sun had already set and the moon ready to come out. The trees were still, and flowers blooming. Even they were trying to make me feel better by being all bright and pretty.
“Where are we going?” I asked with my voice cracking.
“Just for a little stroll near the lake, if you two want to.” He said thoughtfully. My mom always loved going to the lake. She said it was always so peaceful and relaxing for her after a stressful week. Ever since she died, we came there every Saturday evening to relax and think about the good times that we had with her.
My sister and I both looked at each other at the same time. The thing with me and my sister was that we always acted liked twins but she was 2 years older than me; I was 14 and she was 16. Everyone always said that we were exactly alike. When we got in trouble, we would always sit there and stare at my parents and then right back to each other because we knew what each other was thinking. Then we would do the exact same thing. It was some weird gene thing that really connected us. My sister and I stared at each other and a smile began to come out of both our faces. Normally, that meant a ‘yes’ to any question that was asked. My dad looked at us.
“So that’s a yes isn’t it?” he said smiling. My dad knew us very well also. It was just a family thing.
We both looked at him at the same time and said, “Yes!” with a smile.
It took about 10 minutes to drive to the lake. When we arrived, there was no one there. We got out of the car and walked down the step to grass in front of the lake. My sister and I sat down waiting for my dad to bring the blanket from the trunk. As soon as he got there, we spread out the blanket and sat down looking straight forward at the lake. The sound of and owl hooting filled the air. The moon’s light reflected on the lake peacefully. It looked just like a painting that you could stare at forever. Then I saw little animal looking figures running across the grass in front of us. They got a little closer as they ran, and I found out it was a mommy raccoon and her babies following behind. They disappeared behind the trees into the dark little forest to our right.
“Well, that was cute, wasn’t it Caroline?” my sister asked me.
“Yea I guess so.” I said quietly. I had a feeling my sister could tell that I was thinking about my mom and she wanted to change the subject in my mind. That’s the thing I really loved about Sadie. She always tried and tried to make me feel good about myself no matter how bad the situation was. She was one of those kind-hearted sisters that I could count on when I needed advice on anything because of course; she has gone through everything I’m going through since she’s older than me. I love my sister very much and the best part is; we barely ever fight. We don’t fight over things like “Who had the last piece of cake” or stupid things that other people fight about. If we ever fought, it would be about something important like a promise that would affect us if we didn’t keep it.
“Do you remember when we were baking mom’s 39th birthday cake and we made a huge mess in the kitchen?” my sister asked laughing happily.
“Oh yea and when we were trying to clean and an egg fell and cracked on my head!” I said laughing.
“That was fun! I think we still have some pictures of those in our album so we can look at them together!” my dad said smiling. My sister and I nodded at the same time. I tried to blink back tears but they fought through and slid down my face. I moved my eye ball to the side to make sure they didn’t notice I was crying. I sniffled a little bit and wiped the tears off my face. They probably did notice but didn’t want to ask me if I was okay, because they knew from the start that I wasn’t. Then silence reappeared and sadness took over. Sadness always seemed like a stronger feeling to me. It affected me more than happiness did because happiness doesn’t last as long as sadness. Happiness doesn’t always make the bad things go away, but sadness always makes the good things go away. Even my own feelings wouldn’t be easy to deal with. I really try to keep my feelings to myself, but I just needed to take them out somehow. Now, I guess that since my mom is gone, God gave me my sister and that was quite a miracle.
Chapter 2
My mom always told me that my name, Caroline, meant Song of Joy in French and my sister’s name, Sadie, meant princess in Hebrew. When Sadie and I were little and we shared one room, she would always tuck us both into bed and sing a little song to us; “When life brings you down, try to pick yourself off the ground. And never give up on your love, because strength comes from above.” She would repeat it and repeat over and over again until we finally fell asleep. When we woke up next morning, the song would always be stuck in our heads and we would sit down at the breakfast table, and talk about the dreams we had.
It was already 9:00 the next morning when I woke up. I got up, brushed my teeth and walked down stairs.
“Morning sunshine!” my dad said smiling as I got down the stairs.
“Morning.” I said sitting down at the table. My sister was already sitting at the table eating her platter of eggs, bacon, and toast with butter. I had the exact same plate sitting there right in front of me. We sat down in silence eating our meals. The sound of forks and spoons hitting our plates was all I could hear.
“So did you guys sleep well last night?” he asked. This wasn’t what we always talked about with my mom in the morning. My sister and I looked at each other and look back at our plates.
“Well…?” he asked.
I looked up from my plate to my dad’s face. There were little gray bags under his eyes showing that he was pretty tired from last night. His eyes were red and he had a 5:00 shadow. My dad was 43 years old and barely had any gray hair on his head. He wasn’t losing any hair either…yet.
“I guess so.” I said gloomily.
He looked up down at me frowning. He didn’t say anything because if he asked why it was just an “I guess so” I would say something about my mom. Ever since she died, we tried to ignore the subject a lot until it actually mattered and we were doing something that involved her. We sat there in silence and finished out meal. When we were done, I offered to wash the dishes and my sister joined me.
“I know it’s rough for you babe.” She said looking at me sincerely.
“Yea” I said shortly.
“I just want you to always know that whatever happens, I will always love you and I will always be there for you when you need me whether I’m with you or not.” She said tearing up. Her voice was shaking and her face was red.
“Thank you Sadie. I love you a lot and I’m really lucky to have someone to talk to like you.” I said trying to wipe of the tears on my face which had already fallen down, with my sleeve.
“You’re welcome Caroline.” She said drying the plate she was washing. When my dad wasn’t with us and something had happened that we needed to talk about, my sister and I found a way to communicate with each other and tell each other about it. We didn’t want to make our dad feel left out or hide something from him, but it was just what we girls do.