Philosopher's Walk

My sister has a website.

I don't think about my sister much these days. I've had a life to attend to, and when someone can't/won't be a part of your life it is a crime to hurt yourself persistently over their asbence.

Losing a sister was incredibly tough at first. I think I went through at least three psychological stages before I finally gave up trying to keep her in my life. First I was in denial - we're talking about an 11-12 year old version of me remember. From denial I progressed into hope. I had hope that I could fix things, if not between her and my family, then between her and I. Hope led me to search out her phone contact information and call her, to talk to her. This went on for as long as I could take it, until the harsh reality of what had happened sunk through the cracks of my 11-12 year old heart. She's gone. Alive but dead. A sister but a stranger. A person but not anymore. I think after I'd realized all this I was faced with the excrutiating task of grieving. At first I cried on the mere thought of my sister. This persisted for a while. I can't remember when it stopped, in retrospect. All I know is that eventually my sister became a story that would maybe be retold once in a while, if at all.

Amazingly I don't think it was until last year that I really had a chance to dreg up my feelings about the matter, in a fresher light. I retold the story of my sister to a friend of mine, and she suggested a role play where she would play the part of my sister to give me the opportunity to say whatever I wanted to her. At first it was very tough. Every time I wanted to say something negative an antithetical impulse would arise in my mind and I would stop myself. I was trying to be understanding to the point of effacing my feelings. I tried a different strategy that night so as to facilitate my being able to express what I needed to express. I thought of the opposite of every nice thing that I could say about her and said it to my friend qua sister. That did it. I hurled vulgarity after finger pointing after verbal attack. I sluiced my feelings like a hose hurling copious amounts of water at its target.

It felt good.

I think it was at some point after that episode that my mother finally revealed to me the fact of my Sister having a website (after which this blog post is named). It was weird going through the site for the first time. Haunting. My sister was alive and accomplishing things! I felt sad that I missed out on so much in her life. Sad that I couldn't be there with her at times. Coupled with the sadness, however, was a feeling of pride. 'Look what she's done with herself!' was a general theme coming out of this feeling.

I reviewed the website again today, on the whim of my memory of this first visit to her website. My friend pointed something interesting out to me. One of my Sister's computer generated images, entitled 'Reflection', has her sitting amidst a bunch of hebrew words. They are for the most part time related: עתיד, עבר, הוה, מחר, היום, כדור-הארץ. Translated: Future, Past, Present, Tomorrow, Today, and Earth/Globe. In another frame of the picture, as it is animated, is what looks like her Hebrew name, דבורה/Devorah. The only thing is that the middle letter, a 'vav' that is supposed to constitute the 'oh' sound in her Hebrew name, is in fact a 'zayin', which makes a 'zeh' sound. Thinking this to be significant, I went to http://milon.morfix.co.il , an online hebrew-english dictionary, and looked up דב and זרה to see what it would tell me. Bear, Scattered. Bear Scattered? Scattered Bear? I can only conjecture what this means, and I'm not sure it would be accurate.

Something which I shall surely be pondering over the next few days.

Who is she now anyway? A person who I once knew.

Reflectively,

- Inkhorn