Chelsea Sonksen
listen
Chelsea lost her sister Al in a car accident in 2011 when Chelsea was 21 years old.
Hi Al -
This is terrifying to me, you know. Writing to you. Which is funny because for so long right after I lost you I’d leave those long letters at your grave. Davis and I both did. I thought for a time about building you a little mailbox right there next to the yellow flower pot that Jk and Poppy brought for you. But that felt like it bordered on crazy, building a mailbox for your dead sister, so I didn’t. And slowly I stopped writing to you. It was too hard -- the waiting and wanting for a response.
But, alas, here I am again.
I saw Davis this summer. I was home for my ten-year high school reunion, and Maya and I walked into a bar downtown and there he was. I hugged him. His hugs are the same as they always were. Twice as long as anyone else’s hugs. But it felt like part of his twinkle was missing. He was there with a friend, so of course after we hugged for half a century Davis had to explain to his friend who I was. He paused, unsure how to frame it, and he said, Chelsea is my high school girlfriend’s sister. High school girlfriend. The tears all knotted in my throat, and I had to get away as fast as I could. Because how could he call you that? His high school girlfriend. What about -- This is Aleisha’s sister? For if he’d said that it would have meant that his friend knew who you were -- and knew all of what you meant to him. I wanted everyone in his life to know you, the way everyone in my life knows you. I was angry about it, which I know is ridiculous. I can’t help it. It will always be my tendency to stick up for you. I wanted you to still belong with all of us as we walk around the world. You still belong with me.
Mom is sick, which maybe you know. It’s really hard for me. She’s scared of dying, and I’m terrified, Al. Terrified of being left here alone. Of being without you both. I had a dream recently that we were at this big villa in Europe or maybe Japan, I don’t know. And there was a tsunami coming, so all the other people came to the house to hide in the basement. (Pete pointed out how flawed my subconscious is at devising coping mechanisms. We would want the attic. But anyway.) I waited at the door for you and mom, but neither of you came in. The alarms were going off, and everyone else had settled into safety. I knew I could either go in, join them, and be safe, or I could go out into the world and take a chance that the tsunami would come, and find you and mom.
I went out. You were sitting on a bench on the patio with Nicole Curtis, laughing and laughing. So I ran off looking for mom. I found her in the courtyard. But she didn’t see me. Just as the wave was coming she jumped right out in its path. But right then, as she lunged toward the water, she saw me. She knew that I knew she was choosing to leave me. And her eyes filled with terror.
I woke up in tears, and Pete reminded me again and again that mom is a fighter. She isn’t going to go jumping into any tsunamis.
Anyway. If you have any access to magic, please send mom as much healing as you can muster.
I miss you, Al.
Even as I write that, I can feel that the words fall flat. They don’t mean enough. They don’t hold the emptiness in the pit of my stomach. They don’t hold my love for you. They don’t hold every moment that I have wished you were here. I think that is why I don’t write about you anymore. Because words are not enough. Something about the absence of words says more.
I feel you sometimes. When I see lime green butterflies or moths. When the sun it just about to set and all the clouds look swoopy and wistful and painted in the sky and everything feels saturated in gold. When everything is perfect in the world, I feel you.
I will always be in your afterglow. And you’ll always be my favorite person in the world.
I adore you forever,
Chelsea
PS: I love you.
Chelsea lives with her boyfriend in Santa Monica and has created a publication called Bossladies Magazine and a weekly entrepreneurial group called Work Sesh - www.bossladies.co