Dear Will:
This letter from Sally has been following me around for a few years. I found it while you were dying. Today it turned up in the car, I think because I took it to show to my grief therapist awhile back. It's a letter that illustrates to me one of the key problems of my family of origin -- the denial of reality and the covering up of difficult emotions.
Here in this letter are jokes, comments about what she's having for dinner, and other "light" topics. There's nothing here about how her mind is recovering from the madness that lead her to kill her child. Nothing here about the despair and voices that lead her to cut her wrists and would later lead her over a cliff near Monterey and finally off the Golden Gate Bridge.
I don't miss Sally. We were never close. I was closer to my second oldest sister, the one who tied me up and hurt me while babysitting. My early relationship with her added some of the kinks to my "love map." But Sally's explosion and it's general disappearance from family discussion fueled my desire to live in the opposite direction, to express my true feelings when they occurred.
I miss you so much right now because you supported me in expression. When I was broken and terrified you held me and comforted me. You saw the craziness in my family and me and loved me anyway.
And now I'm alone with my craziness, which evokes sadness. I know I have friends who care for me but it's not the same as having you here. Nothing is the same.
I miss you so much.
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