Member-only story
My Dead Family Is Still On the Mantel
A stark reminder of trauma every time I visit home
My mom and my sister — there they are.
Sitting, side by side in ceramic urns.
Front and center.
On the mantel.
I’d never put them there, but it wasn’t my choice. My father put them there, and it’s his house.
But to me, it’s creepy.
My mom’s death was hard, but my sister’s was harder, for me at least. My mom had Alzheimer’s disease, which was a shit show in itself; but my sister Robin died unexpectedly of cirrhosis — a secret she hid surprisingly well until it killed her.
And now, four–five years later, respectively, they sit side by side, in death.
My mom is our mother, but we have different biological fathers. My father, however, raised Robin from age four. As my sister and mother navigated divorce together in the 1960s, they always had a special bond that I didn’t have with my mom. Not that we weren’t close, but their relationship was different, one of survival.
Yet here they are.
As I sit here typing, I look up and see those two dopey urns. One white with a red cardinal, the other navy blue with a lighthouse. Stark reminders of two of the…
