How do you begin to even calculate the span of 27 years, as a 40 year old, trying to grasp the 13 years before & the 27 years after someone's death. It's strange to me, thinking about Crissy now as an adult when all my memories of her are from childhood & teenage years. Missing someone you don't really know anymore, someone you haven't spoken to or even looked at in such a long time is weird. I sometimes feel a little embarrassed by how I reacted to Crissy's death. Of course, the trauma was very real, having your sister, someone you grew up with being brutally murdered in a split second. The trauma is still real & still affects me in ways I will certainly never fully understand.
The brain is mysterious & wild, how can I even fully grasp the level of damage done to me. I started to begin to understand a more sense of reality of my relationship with Crissy several years ago. I started thinking about how I don't really miss Crissy but more so, I miss the person I never really knew. Crissy & I could not have been more opposite, me craving attention while Crissy would burrow herself under her clothes & hair. I overshared, Crissy never shared. I was white as can be & she was Mexican. I was an overachiever while she struggled with learning disabilities. I adjusted well into a very white & rural community whereas she struggled. I knew Crissy but honestly, I don't think anyone really knew her as well as she knew herself. She was so secretive, quiet, shy & just...struggled. I feel a sense of shame for not sharing that struggle with her, for not even attempting to understand how she must have felt. I grew up always knowing she was my sister & that she was adopted from Mexico City as a newborn. There wasn't any difference between her & Wendy except Wendy & I shared genes & blood. But thinking that way now seems more like saying "I don't see color" because there was a difference. She was different. Even though she spent all her life with us, she was different. And I sometimes think we were so focused on making sure she didn't feel different that we missed opportunities to celebrate her differences.
I don't have a lot of regrets & it sure as hell fucked me up when she was murdered. I missed so much of those prime teenage years. I spent years in such sorrow & despair. But I don't blame myself for anything. I just have reached a point where I can be more honest with myself. Where I can look critically at my past & see misguidance. I think very few people really knew Crissy well. There were some, for sure. But I am not certain I was one of them & that's ok. I loved her. I missed her. I mourned her heavily.
Crissy always said she never wanted to grow old. She once wrote about her own death. She wrote about wanting to die. In her last seconds, when she saw that axe coming towards her, I wonder what she thought. I wonder if she knew she was going to die. I wonder if she felt panic or a sense of calm. I think about those final moments at times & I cant even really begin to picture it all. The noises, the smells, the blood, the screams. I wonder what images replay in the people that were there, the one that swung that axe at her, the one who stood by & watched & the one who perhaps wanted to be the one swinging it. I don't think about them often, these men, really at all. I don't feel a sense of urgency for retaliation or revenge. More than anything I feel like...wow. You have to live with that. And I wonder how they navigate it in their daily life. How they justify it. I feel compassion, yes, but mainly I don't really feel anything. I am more able to view the whole picture instead of my own solitary pain & suffering. I can look beyond that & see where so many societal & economical failures led to this. I can see everyone involved as an individual.
So many factors led to these murders & being someone who is wholeheartedly against the prison industrial complex, I don't see any justice beyond restorative justice. That has certainly happened with Sam Strange & I, which I am so grateful for. Beyond that I don't see much traction & I'm ok with that. I sit here at 8:12pm thinking back 27 years on the last hours Crissy was alive. Maybe she was already dead? It sucks when people die. It's terrifying to think of my headspace back then. I'm pretty grateful for how far I've come. I know Crissy's life was supposed to be short. That she entered it when she did, with some sort of mission or role to play & she did just that. Her suffering has been over for some time now. I don't need to cry for her anymore. I am not a religious person, at all, but I do believe in the mysterious, the whimsical, the magical aspects of life. So here I am, 27 years later writing about my dead sister on a Friday night.
And I'm ok with that.