Love Beyond Death

When my sister died, I also met her.
Bleach and betrayal were in the air when I entered the emergency room. The robots blinked as if they were trying to hide their confusion. I heard that the nurse had noticed her pulse recovering, but I watched the flatline (a steady tone) for a moment longer.
My mother needed to be held by a person she didn’t know. My stepdad hit the wall and started yelling insults at the ceiling. I didn’t shed any tears. I did not make any movement. I looked at the corner where the light took an odd shape, making it seem as if something was preventing it from moving.
She made herself present.
I am not a nurse. They are not spirits or ghosts. A figure that appears tall and strong in the fading light, as a special flickering candle out in front of a church.
Her face wasn’t visible to me; I could only make out a glimmer and a hint of its outline. Her hair looked like smoke and coal, and her gaze, which I could make out, was like a jar of violet twilight.
She leaned her head to look more attentively at me.
The scene stays with me, but for some reason, I can’t remember moving to her. The noises from the machines, the crying and the storm went away.
“Why her?” I asked. Why should I not believe in myself?
She lightly covered the window with her gloved hand. She left behind a ring of frost formed into a tiny bird. All of a sudden, she was no longer with us.
I was still seventeen years old.
☽
Grief is something I have always wished I didn’t need to learn. I experienced things such as cotton in my ears and sand in my throat at the beginning. Afterwards, I noticed that every smile other people gave me seemed to wound me deeply. I did not say anything. Stopped sketching. I could not remember the noise of my sister’s laughter since remembering it was painful.
At that point, she came back.
It was almost the middle of the night. A light touch from the rain could be seen on the windows. My lamp flashed for a second and stopped working. I sat up, and there she was in the corner as if no time had passed since she was last there.
I did not experience fear this time. I felt like someone understood me.
“I love how you came back,” I added.
She did not say anything, but she moved ahead, and the temperature got colder. I was surrounded by a fog-like mist. She brought her hand close to my face and nearly touched my cheek.
I sighed and said, “I missed you.”
She showed a touch of sadness on her face. She withdrew.
“Allow me to experience everything with you.”
She briefly stopped speaking and slowly nodded her head.
“Why not?”
Folds of shadows grew around her. After that, she was gone, just like smoke that dissipated.
During my sleep, I had a dream where she was standing in the blank street, the moonlight kissing her feet.
☽
She made frequent visits to us from then on. I saw them in my reflection and sometimes in things they shouldn’t be reflected in. I caught a glimpse of her on the train while travelling to college, amongst the books on the library shelves. As I acted on stage, a person in the back row quietly clapped while the crowd cheered loudly.
I always kept my experience a secret. It appeared to my therapist that I was having trouble dealing with the trauma. Some people thought I was unusual because I talked to myself as if people were listening. I was simply going through a transition.
I was slowly falling for the quietness she offered.
Peace is characterized as death personified.
Still, she wasn’t what they thought she was. She was not cruel to anyone. She was what brought me out of the brokenness I felt after my sister passed away.
I made poems for my girlfriend and afterwards burned them in the sink. I kept a black stone with me as a good luck charm to help speed up her search. I no longer went on dates after that. It doesn’t help, as the one who really cared didn’t exist in this world.
☽
Kissing each other for the first time occurred the night I turned twenty-one.
My friends invited me to the bonfire on the other side of the dorms, but I chose to head to the cemetery by the woods instead. I had on a burgundy coat with black boots. The sky above was apparent, and the shining stars looked like they were made of bits of broken glass.
I was next to a grave with my sister’s name on it. My hands shook because I was so cold or maybe because I was nervous.
I observed that the wind’s emission was delayed.
After that, she was right behind me.
Her skin emitted frost in a wide circle from her feet. I looked at her head-on. At this point, she was more sure of herself. Even without a face, her lines looked sharper than before. The animal’s coat scraped against the ground when she walked like spilt ink.
“I missed you so much,” I told him.
This time, she touched me with her gloved hand, placing it on my jaw. First, I felt a prickling sensation, and then everything became numb. Her hand traced the corner near my mouth.
Just after that, she kissed me.
It felt as though I was falling. Not trembling from gravity but freely diving without nerves. No breathing or lips could be found in the painting. Just stillness. A time during which nothing was happening. A space made up of moments between each heartbeat.
After opening my eyes, I saw that there was nobody there except for me.
Yet, the memories I had did not fade.
☽
I began to notice her around me in the day-to-day things I did.
While walking to the coffee shop from campus, she would somehow get there before I did and quietly follow me from behind. I once saw her on the roof as a thunderstorm began around us. On a different occasion, when I looked into the fridge, her image was reflected on the door.
She did not talk to anyone.
I was always able to understand him.
I waited patiently for something to happen.
☽
I tried to kill myself on my twenty-third birthday.
I did not write a note. I wasn’t aiming to make a statement through it. All I wanted was to be with her completely and thoroughly. I was feeling hungry instead of aching. I do not take it because of pain for release.
I ended up taking too much medicine. I made my bed and waited there.
She came.
Next to me on the bench, her coat looked as if it had spilt over like ink. From above, I could feel her palms move close, though they did not make contact.
“You’re awake,” I said, sounding tired. “Take me.”
She moved her head back and forth.
“Why?” I begged.
From inside her coat, she took out a black feather that seemed to be on fire. She put it on top of my chest. I could feel my pulse under the floor.
She just replied, “Not yet.”
Then, she kissed my forehead, and I suddenly woke up in an ambulance.
☽
It was excruciating to recover from what I went through.
I’m not looking at therapy. It’s not just because of the lights or the meetings I participated in. The most irksome aspect was how long I went without hearing her voice.
She did not show up anymore.
All the methods I could think of were used. Exploring places on top of dangerous cliffs. Speeding through areas where there is a storm. Spending an extra few seconds on bridges so the wind can ruffle my shirt. Still, Rose never made it.
Not even after my stepdad passed away.
Not even when she took herself so far with her drinking.
Not a single time did it work, even when I cried out my begging into the mirror.
I thought she was gone.
☽
One night, she returned to the village.
I turned twenty-seven the same year. Alone. My job was not fulfilling, so I returned home to a messy apartment, and I simply didn’t feel like cleaning the dishes. I sat on the floor under the window and quietly called out my friend’s name.
She made an appearance—still, somehow shining in the distance between the wall and where the moon shone.
I started to think you had forgotten all about me.
She came over to me and touched her hand on my chest.
She said, “Despite what happened, you managed to live.” Her voice came out in a low tone, similar to an hourglass tipping.
Because you never picked me for your race, I was able to survive.
“Exactly.”
She gave me a kiss after that. Nevertheless, that first kiss didn’t rob anyone of anything.
I found something beneficial.
A breath. A warmth.
A reason.
After that, she left the town for a while.
☽
After that, I didn’t put any suicidal thoughts in my head.
I continued to long for what I had lost, but only with time did I understand why. Liz wasn’t expecting me to give up. She was patiently waiting for me to become the whole person I am now.
I took up painting once more. I went to my sister’s grave to share everything with her. I decided to attend school again. I have completed a book.
However, I couldn’t stop dreaming about her.
And when I was nearly unrecognizable to the nurses for the way I smiled at the lights, she was finally able to say goodbye.
She was by my side as I lay in the hospice bed.
Eliminating shadows from your life.
Every end and beginning seemed woven into the giant cloak that was like a galaxy, glowing with starlight.
She looked at me and said, “Are you all set?”
“Yes.”
She put her hand in mine.
The pain was the first thing to go. Next, the experience of many years. After that comes the pain from waiting.
Soon, all thoughts of the real world were forgotten.
I discovered that there was something left after death.
It was a large hall used as a ballroom.
A vast hall of black marble and golden smoke. The ceiling shimmered with constellations no astronomer had named. Every wall held mirrors, but they reflected only memory.
She waited at the centre, dressed in silver now, her eyes bright as comet trails.
She offered her hand.
I took it.
And we danced.
Through centuries of silence. Through the music of vanishing stars. Through every dream I had ever buried.
She never spoke again.
But she didn’t need to.
Because now I understood—
Death had always loved me.
But she could never take what I hadn’t given freely.
She had waited.
And love, real love, is patient.
Even if it must wait a lifetime.