Tortured by Hope and Dreams

6

I was 21 when we got into that accident, making Elle 13, and the twins 8. My parents were driving me back from my college dorm. They spent the day helping me organize and pack my stuff. By the afternoon, everything was wrapped and we were heading back. I was coming home for the summer. What I thought was going to be my last summer with my family before I started trying to find a full-time job and move out.

I tend to have many goals and plans for the future, of course knowing that things might change and that I might have to adjust the steps I take to reach all that I aim for. I thought I understood that the only constant in life is change, but I didn't...I never... When my parents died in that accident, my life didn't just change, it was thrown into complete disarray. There was a before and there was an after.

In a way, everyone in the car that night died. Whoever woke up in that hospital room was someone else. Someone with a separate life and future than the girl that was in that car with her parents, heading home for summer break. That girl, I wish I lived her life. Sometimes I miss the person that existed before, but the girl after had to be born in order to survive.

At times, I wish that I was the only one that died that night. Would Elle, Hope, and Faith have lived a better life if I had? I parse it out sometimes. One death might have been easier to get over rather than two. The death of a sister might have been less damaging than the death of two parents. My death specifically might have been less of a tragedy. Maybe they all would have felt more like a family if I was gone.

My birth mom is different from Elle and the twins. She died giving birth to me, which devastated my dad, but I guess he was also reborn into someone who would help him survive after that. My sisters and I all have the same mom though. My mom just came into my life when I was 4. My mom and dad loved each other deeply. He started laughing more when she came into his life, and I loved her for that. I guess we both fell in love with her. They had Elle when I was 8 and the twins 4 years after that.

I was the only one born from someone else. Born from a tragedy for my dad. So, yes, I sometimes fell into the dark thoughts of whether my existence complicated things. If things would be even just a little less complicated if I was also gone. It made me feel undeserving of life. I spun it as being more grateful for life, but after the accident I realized that it made me feel like I had to live properly to be worth my existence. Whenever I dreamed of something more, I had to push it down and try to think and live more appropriately instead.

The person that came out of that accident struggled to stifle, throw away, squelch the thoughts of more. I had to live with nothing or less than nothing after my parents died, so the dreams of more threatened to kill me. The desire for something that could only exist in my mind made things so much harder. I had to steel myself, purge myself of anything weak because I had to be strong. I had to be stronger than myself because I had to have the strength for more than just me, but for my sisters as well. I was never enough, and now I had to be more than I ever would have been.