Burning Bridges

I stood there at the back of the church looking at the casket in the front.  I knew this day was coming but I still wasn't prepared for it.  I knew one day she was going to try too hard to get people to pay attention and she was going to succeed in killing herself.   That’s the thing a lot of people do not understand.  Some people who kill themselves are not doing it because they want to die.  They are just trying to get someone to feel sorry for them.  Someone to get them out of whatever situation they find themselves in that they don’t like.  They figure if they try to kill themselves that they will get someone to pay attention and feel bad for them and their poor poor pitiful life that they have. The thing is sometimes that attempt to get that attention succeeded in killing them.  I believe this is the case with my sister.  No matter what anyone tried to do for her, it was never enough.  No matter how hard we tried to help her, she just used and used till it became an abuse of sorts.  Slowly everyone walked away from her.  I stayed by her side our entire lives, no matter what she did to me.  It didn’t matter what she said when she was mad.  She was my sister, my twin sister and I believed that there was goodness in her.  I see it.  We spent sometimes years without her acting out.  Every time she had me convinced that she finally changed and grew up, she would suddenly do one of those stupid things that she did. She broke my heart time after time, but time after time I was there to pick her up and carry her on.  I knew what she was about, and I told everyone she wasn’t using and abusing me if I knew what she could and would eventually do.  It seems I lied most to myself, because even though I knew what she could and would do in life, I still felt I was exempt from the most damaging things she could do.  The evil part of her that I refused to believe existed.  Maybe it was because to admit that she really was as evil as she was, would mean that maybe I am just as capable of such atrocities.  Maybe it was in me too.  I mean we have been inseparable for our entire lives.  No, I have never got involved in the destructive things she did, but when we were in our teens there were plenty of things that we did that I am sure we shouldn’t have.  If I could do the things she did then, what is there to say it wasn’t in me to be that evil too? It took a lot for me to finally walk away from her for good.  It took even longer for me to realize that even though we shared the same blood.  Even though we were not only sisters, but twins, and best friends, there was a part of her that I would never understand and that I couldn't help her.  It still took even more time after that for me to accept that I am not like her that evilness that has taken over any goodness she had, is not in me.  We have a choice in life to do good or bad.  She made that decision on her own.  Now here she is, barely two years after I walked away, laying in a casket.  Cold and lifeless.  The only people here at her funeral are our family who just shake their heads and show up because its expected or people who are curious to see if she really did it this time. I am not the only person to witness her destruction. Far from it.  Some of the people at this funeral are probably here for a celebration more than to pay their respects for her death. Though the church isn't even half filled up I still can't bring myself to walk up to that casket.  I don't think I can look at her, see her body.  I don't think I am ready to admit she is gone, and to see her is to know.  I have not spoken to her or even seen a picture of her since the day I told her I couldn’t help her anymore.  I know I must go up there, I must see that it’s her, I must put it to rest in my head, that she is really gone now.  She cannot hurt me anymore; in a way I think that is the biggest pain of all. She was supposed to fix her life, she was supposed to realize that she still had time to fix it.  She didn't need to be so self-destructive.  She was supposed to own up to her mistakes and become everything that she was meant to be.  Instead she was selfish, she didn't get what she wanted, so she took a bunch of pills, so that her boyfriend would call 911 and feel sorry for her and take her back, or whatever reason she did it this time.  However, she picked the wrong one this time, no one even knew she was dead until three days after she took the pills. While she was lying dead in her bed, her "boyfriend" was home convincing his wife that that loca white girl was mistaking him for someone else.  Telling her that white girls think all Mexican men look the same.  Miguel is a common name.  Then he spent the next two days impregnating his wife before going back to see my sister. He is the one who found her dead.  He didn't even call 911.  He called me.  Seems she left a note saying if she died call me.  He left me a voice mail telling me he found my sister dead in her apartment and gave me the address.  I had to call the police, they came to my house first and listened to my voicemail.  Then questioned me on why I didn’t run and check on her after that call.  I was not even wasting my time answering their questions.  I just told them to do their job and then I left my house. I didn't know where I was going.  I didn't even shut the door behind me.  I left the police standing there yelling for me to come back.  I guess they finally figured out I wasn't listening, so they moved on to find out if the message was true or just another way for her to try and get at me.  Twenty minutes later the officers call my cell phone and tell me that she is dead, and I need to identify the body.  I told them call my parents, her boyfriend, or anyone else.  I was not doing it. I force myself to take that first step and count all the way up till my hands rest on the side of the casket.  I closed my eyes by the time I got halfway up the aisle, I can feel the eyes of everyone on me.  Our family knew how close we were, they knew how much it tore me apart and killed a part of me to walk away from her.  I could feel their concern, and I knew I would need to get out of there quickly if I didnt want to be suffocated by their well-meaning words and hugs. Twenty-one steps and I had the edge of the casket under my hands, all I had to do was open my eyes and prove to myself that she was gone.  That I didn’t need to keep waiting for that call anymore.  To prove that finally she was at peace, at least her body was.  All I had to do was open my eyes, just a little bit. There she was, right in front of me.  It was her.  She really was gone.  I don’t know what reaction I expected to have once I seen her and verified that it truly was her.  Relief was not really one I thought of, but that is what I felt.  Relief that I had these two years to deal with our separation before she passed, relief that I could now move on with my life without wondering what she had in store for me next.  Even though I walked away from her two years ago, she never let me forget it.  Not even for a moment.  She made sure that as soon as I started to feel normal and safe in my life, she would do something to me, something to mess me up, mess up what I had going on.  She would do something to make sure I felt her rage, her anger, her belief that I had somehow failed her.  That I had somehow done something to her. Now two years later here she lies, dead and alone.  I guess this is what happens when you spend your life burning bridges.