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The Red Dawn & the White Angel

"...And what constitutes evil, real evil, is the taking of a single human life. Whether a man would die tomorrow or the day after or eventually... it doesn't matter. Because if God does not exist, then life... every second of it... Is all we have." - Louis of Pointe de Luc

Whether people die young or old, we all die. It’s the circle of life. Ha! Some people don’t deserve to die young. Some should live to a ripe old age, and the other’s who constitute bad should die young. Not that I’m blaming anybody or anything. It’s just that when you understand death it’s scarier than not understanding it. If that makes any sense…no? Then let me explain it to you. Those who are destined to commit crimes of horrible passion deserve to die so they can’t kill those who don’t. You see, the definition of death sounds easy: a permanent cessation of all vital functions : the end of life. Morbid, yes? But who cares? We’ll all die no matter what we do. I don’t know if you can call it my obsession but it’s something close. I’m an old woman now. I was young once too. And it was when I was young that my life was altered. So were my perceptions of life. And everything to do with it. Maybe that’s why I understand so much. There is little to be understood but a lot to misunderstand. A conundrum. Forgive my prattles, I’m old and life isn’t as it used to be. That’s why I yearn for death, but first I’ll tell you the story of what brought me here. It seems like it was hundreds of years ago, more likely it was sixty years go. I was sixteen years old and a vibrant young girl. It was a wonderful life I had and things were normally stable…but my younger sister got in with trouble. And trouble just couldn’t leave her alone….

We stood out on the dock, looking out upon the water as the sun slowly sank down towards the ocean casting it with brilliant shadows and sharp edges.

“Blair…what trouble are you in?” I ask.

She doesn’t reply. She stares straight ahead. “Don’t get involved.” Her voice is cold. “You don’t know anything.”

I roll my eyes and turn away. “Whatever then. It’s not as if our parents know, ah, I guess I’ll tell them who - ”

She slings her arm across my path scowling. “Don’t.” And then she becomes pleading. “Please. I know I need help…help me!”

My lips curve up into a smile. “Glad you asked.” As we look at the sky which is now black and dark, she tells the tale of the people who hurt her, beat her, physically…mentally. There’d be nothing better than to hurt those girls, to tear out their insides and make them feel my fury. But they’re dangerous, she reminds me. I tell her not so, they’re only as strong as their evil lasts.

“Whatever that means,” she scoffs at me. But her voice is warm. Not that cold, calculated nothingness that had been there more than an hour ago. A part of me hopes that I can hurt them until they’re dead. It’s a big sister’s job to protect her little sister. Which I hadn’t done. But what was to come next would tear my world apart. It would shatter into a million little pieces. And some of those pieces would be missing when I went to put my life back together.

Day comes quickly where we live, so by the time we were getting home, the sun was about to rise. And it happened so quickly, I wasn’t sure it had even happened. It’s like the sunrise it’s over so quickly you don’t realize it. Or rather a second. So quickly passed you wouldn’t know. That’s what it felt like. It was that moment that one of those pieces shattered. And we couldn’t have known…should never have known what would happen if we walked that way. We should have made it home, and eaten breakfast with our parents, and then played out in the yard, dancing under the old oaks with the Spanish moss and the warm sun on our backs. But, it’s December now. Even though the sun may still be warm, the water will freeze you. I felt like I was in that frozen water in that moment. It was as if I was stuck in the ice, never to free myself. But as she ran away, I stared. My sister’s blood was fanning around her, the red a deep crimson like that of a rose petal. And so alive, so vital to life it seemed alive as it seeped across the ground. But when it got too far away, it hardened and seemed to die. Like a weeping rose. My body slid to the ground, and cradled her head in my lap. Her blood leaked through my fingers as I tried to hold the wound closed, and her blood dyed my skin red. Her blood was drying on my hands, on my body, on my face and on my clothes. Her warmth was slowly slipping away as I attempted to keep her warm. I remember dialing something, speaking into a phone telling them something. My hands trembling as they dropped it to the ground, and then seeking my sister’s face, and seeing her eyes staring up at me, and a smile on her lips.

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs to me, “Dying…it isn’t bad. This isn’t bad. Not as long as I have you by my side. Will you stay by my side?” I can feel her hand squeezing mine, asking assurance.

“Yes,” I whisper, “Yes.” And her hand goes slack. I fumble for her wrist, searching for the pulse I know that won’t be there. Aching to find it, knowing I won’t. Even today, sixty years later, I can still feel her blood on my hands, her hand in mine and taste the salt of my tears as they leaked down my cheeks, streaking the blood. I hear the sirens coming now…and feel myself being pulled away slowly. And the words,

‘Poor thing…’
‘Dying…’
‘how…why?’
“tragic…death…”

I can’t remember anything but seeing her face in my mind over and over…but it wasn’t long until I saw her again. In reality, it was just one week. I had been comatose that whole week according to my parents, and no one had been able to do a single thing for me. But on the day of my sister’s funeral, it snowed. For the first time in years it snowed buckets. And I stood outside in that snow, watching as they lowered my sister’s body into the grave. And I placed a single rose into the grave with her. It was the color of her blood, the blood that spilled that day on the street. And the words on her grave stood out in stark contrast to everything else.

Blair Dave
Beloved Daughter and Sister
Born November 15, 1994
Died September 13, 2008

I could imagine her laughing, smiling down at me and feel her next to me. Out of the corner of my eye, amidst the people, I could see her dressed in white with feathered angel wings. I smile and look up at the sky, feeling the snow on my face, her gift to me.

Even now as I stand at her grave I can tell she’s with me. Eternally young and forever caught in the trap of death. I lay a single red rose on her grave, and let go of the regrets I sheltered for sixty years, and finally understand how easy death is. And as I rise, she greets me with a hug and says, “I knew you’d tell the truth,” And as I look at us reflected in the skies, I see two young girls, eternally young, forever beautiful and dressed in white, as we leave the earthly world behind.