For Charlie

This photo was not taken by me as I’m the girl missing my two front teeth. The adorable boy next to me is my friend and neighbor, Charlie, who died last week after a battle with cancer. I wrote him a letter and would like to put it out into the universe in the hopes that it finds him wherever he is.

Dear Charlie,

Yesterday I went to your funeral. To be honest, I was dreading it because I was scared they were going to tell us that it was God’s will and that you were called back to Heaven early because He needed another angel, which I knew would not make me feel any better because no, we need you here on Earth more and I can’t bring myself to love a God who would willfully take you at 24. Thankfully she said none of that. Indeed, your pastor knew you too well, knew your family too well and said many of the same things that I’ve been thinking. That there is no answer to the question why. That we will never know why. She acknowledged our collective grief and our anger. She didn’t even ask me to trust that it was right. She only asked that we try to find comfort in others who loved you, which I’m trying to do.

Today when I woke up, I started thinking about walking to Fox Hill together. How our parents had to get special permission because everyone was required to take the bus, even though we lived a block away. I thought about how Sage was often lectured on how she had to take my hand to cross Hoover, even when she was feeling particularly stubborn and didn’t want to. Most of the time she let me hold her hand, but sometimes it was a struggle. I remember how you almost always took her other hand, instinctively, and how we all crossed the big street together. Whereas holding her big sister’s hand was an irritation, she loved holding yours. I remember thinking that you wanted to protect my sister the same way I did, and I loved you for it.

At the time I couldn’t have seen that this small act was indicative of how you would live your whole life. Instinctively reaching out to others who were more vulnerable, especially children. Making everyone feel special because you acknowledged them, because you took the time to know them. Of how you would end up walking that same walk as an adult, to hold the hands of children in the same classrooms where we grew up. When my mom first told me about your job at Fox Hill, it seemed so obvious, like why did you even bother trying to do anything else? You had the very rare gift of making people happy and I’m so glad that you used it in all aspects of your life.

I’ve been leaving memories in your guestbook about the childhood we spent together, beautiful, happy memories about making forts and clay pots, about running around the woods, digging up wild onions and strawberries, igloos and most importantly, torturing our baby sisters. It’s been such a joy to revisit that time and crystalized what an impact you and your family had on our lives. After my parents divorced and we moved to Indiana, we went from a two parent home with my mom home all the time, to a one-parent home where my mom had to work. Your family helped ground us all, helped our neighborhood become a true community where everyone pitched in. We had a childhood full of lightening bugs in jars and flashlight tag and homemade popsicles. We read library books outside and got in trouble with each other’s moms. It’s the kind I would like to give my own children someday, and I hope they are lucky enough to find a partner-in-crime like you.

When I got home, I wanted to take a photo of our tree. I thought it might help me get through my grief to have something tangible, to channel my sadness into art, to capture it somehow so I could let it go. On Sunday we were bringing some food over to your house and as I was trying to open your front door while holding four grocery bags, I glanced over and saw that the woods behind your house had been stripped and that the old dead tree was gone. It slayed me. I felt like my childhood had been cut down and dragged away. First Sara died, and then you, and now the tree? What was left? What is left?

Of course I knew it was stupid to get so upset over a dead tree, and that it wasn’t really the tree that I was grieving, but the fact that you’re not here and Sara’s not here and that I don’t get to watch the great things you would have done with your life. But I still felt robbed because I knew sitting by that tree would have comforted me, would have made me feel connected to you even though you are gone.

Turns out what has brought me a small measure of comfort was exactly what your pastor said would: being around those who loved you, telling pieces of your story, and hearing about the pieces that I missed. I tried to talk about a memory of you at the calling, about how we both used to get punished by having our precious books taken away, and how not reading before bed was a horrible fate, about you in your coonskin cap. I had so much more to tell. I was going to talk about the traps we built by digging a foot-shaped hole and covering it with a thin layer of criss-crossed sticks and then leaves, and how we always made my sister “test” them because we told her we were too heavy and she was just the right weight (I know, I can’t believe she ever fell for our bullshit either). I was going to say all those things, but once I was up at the microphone and looking at the room bursting with people, I could only get a little bit out before my voice started cracking and I knew I was going to lose it if I didn’t step away.

I hope you’re able to watch everyone, because I know you must be so proud. Your family is heartbroken, but are acting with so much grace. Just like you knew they would. So many people were at your calling the line was out the door and the church was just overflowing. Of course no one knew what to say. I kept finding faces that I hadn’t seen in years, hugging them and then we’d look at each other for awhile before someone would finally say something like “this sucks.” We decided collectively that the next time we are all reunited, it will be for a happy occasion. You would have laughed.

I am so lucky that you moved in two doors down, and to have been able to bear witness to the amazing man that you became. Thank you for being in our world, for your good work, for making me laugh, putting me in my place and for just being joyfully, unapologetically, you.

Love Always, Sierra