A Letter to Angel

Part 1/1

“Dear Angel,

Everything outside was suffocated in the first frost of the year, and it seemed so terrifyingly accurate. I felt like the sick green grass dashed under the frost, unable to allow my lungs to expand and contract to release the air I so desperately needed. I had been laying on my bed for the last few days, unable to summon any form of appetite and unable to get up to do the simple tasks that should have been, well, simple. Every form of distraction is inadequate, and I was a slump of tears and tissues.

    Two days before, Mom had called me while I sat at my girlfriend’s house and I answered. My shushing didn’t cool her as Levi climbed beside me and rested her head in my lap, her chocolate brown locks sprayed around her beautiful heart-shaped face. The optimistic atmosphere seemed to stun the news our mother was going to tell me, and it helped me feel ignorant and oblivious. It would’ve been helpful at the time, but the more ignorant I was, the harder the world came crashing down when reality set in.

    Mom’s voice on the other end was soft and filled with melancholy, and the tone flittered through her words. “Artemis,” She said into the receiver and my throat closed, “did you hear me?” I felt the weight of Levi’s head shift in my lap and my eyes glanced down at her and she was staring back up at me with big green eyes.

I remember shifting slightly and nodding my head, though more for Levi, before my quivering lip bent down to speak, “Angel committed suicide.” I remember the girl in my lap springing up to hug me, and my mother’s voice break at the other end of the phone, but it was all a stunned quietness inside my mind.

    The day of your burial, I laid on my bed, wondering how your funeral would be. They were going to give you a closed casket and bury your body down at the old church hill where we used to sled during the winters. You were going to have a flat stone with your name and date engraved in it, and in another hundred years, no one is going to remember Angel Austin Mendoza and his grieving sister. We’ll all just be forgotten, and so will you, Angel. Gone in the wind. And I know your funeral wasn’t going to give us closure like the ceremony was supposed to, and I wondered what would actually do it.

    I had slipped down from my bed and I glanced to my desk. There was one picture on it that seemed to burn the wood, and out of anger, I gripped the framed polaroid in my hand and brought it up the stairs. Our parents were straightening each other’s dark outfits out and our mother’s makeup was already pouring down her cheeks. Gruff father seemed harder, his exterior radiating a wave of intense mood suppression. Once seeing me, he walked over and took my hand in his, giving it what was supposed to be a reassuring squeeze.

Dad and Mom finished getting dressed and Mom cleaned up her makeup, and the three of us slipped outside to walk to the car. It was the Impala you begged Dad to buy, and I could still see you excitedly jumping in place beside it, begging the two parents to allow you to drive. I thought that maybe they would let you if you stopped playing a joke and came back, that maybe you would be able to slip into the leather seat to drive. But you didn’t come back and you wouldn’t be able to drive.

    Instead Dad got the driver’s side, and Mom the shotgun seat. I slipped in back, still holding the framed picture in my hands tightly. I wanted to scream, I wanted to cry and let my tears burn my cheeks until I melted, but instead I sat there, staying as calm as I could. We were all so pin-drop silent as Dad hit the ignition and began the drive to the funeral.

    You didn’t want a wake, Dad remembered. When Grandma Smith passed away, you told him about the way you wanted your funeral because there were so many extra things put in place. You wanted it to be so simple, and Dad recollected your wishes when he set it up. To just slip you into the ground and each family member pray that your soul ascends, and let each person throw a handful of dirt onto your coffin.

    I moved to the side and leaned my head against the door, tracing the frame of the picture with my hands. Tears threatened to invade my eyes but I wrestled it back with a sharp bite to my inflamed bottom lip. Instead I just let what had came up slip down my cheeks before sharply batting it away with my thumb. My preoccupied state kept me from glancing out the window, I wasn’t up for sightseeing, and as I did my dance of grief, the Impala hit the bump up into the church parking lot.

All of our family members were there. Grandma Betty and her husband, who had oddly out-lived you, hobbled over their items of assistance. Aunt Marie was holding one of her kids close to her chest, and I thought that maybe she was crying. Of course they were. Quinn always had a soft spot for you, and besides me, she was the only one who could sit with you when you were sad.

    We parked, and when I climbed out, a few people shot up to greet me, but I passed them. My eyes watered and I felt feverish, but my feet steadied me out and I walked to Quinn. Aunt Marie had stood up now, away from her, and the girl turned around only to be enveloped with my arms. It was there, hugging the little girl tight against me, that made it all seem real. My eyes strained tears out and they flooded down my face as I kept the little girl curled against me. I was crying.

    When we were forced to pull away from each other was when the funeral started. I was forced to walk in there and sit and try not to cry. Dad held my hand comfortingly, telling me softly that it was okay to cry, but I looked ahead stoically. Everyone handled me so gingerly during the reminiscing of you, and when it came time for me to eulogize you, I stood there quietly. Appropriately. But then the only memory of you I could muster was about my freckles.

Remember? Mom used to tell me that the only reason I had them was because they were kisses. Your kisses, Angel kisses, and permanently pasted over my cheeks and nose and downward onto my face. It was a soft, tiny story, but once I finished it, everyone seemed as elated as they could be. Specifically because I had said something. The first all day.

    Then we buried you. I would like to say that I didn’t cry, but each helpful handful of dirt was like molten lava in my hand. Everyone helped out with a handful of dirt, and soon the crowd dissipated. Mom and Dad waited until everyone was ready to leave and they began toward the car with me. I followed in suite, my body shaking as if I were immensely cold, but I wasn’t.

    The next days were a living Tartarus. They wanted everything to get back to normal, but it wasn’t healing the way it should be. The days then extended into months, and everyone forgot about you. But I didn’t. I remembered you and missed you and grieved. Levi wasn’t helpful, but God bless her soul, she told me to write something. To flood my feels out onto a page. And this is why I’m writing now, Angel. Because after I finish, I am going to go visit you and we’re going to talk.

I know it won’t help me ever get over you, because death is a burden that everyone will come to carry, but I also know that you’ll always be my twin, my paragon and idol, and even when I breech one hundred, when my grandkids ask about you, I’ll talk about your labors. I’ll talk about your thick mop of brown hair and how you smiled with your eyes instead of your lips. Your body returned to the Earth but your soul is abiding, with Mom, Dad, and me.

I love you, Angel Austin Mendoza.

Your Twin Infinitely,

Artemis Marie Mendoza.”