Kelly's Gone

Two words.

That's all it took for the persistent, gnawing fear that had been lurking in the depths of my mind to materialize suddenly.

One phone call and two words muttered from my fiancé's unnerved voice:

“It’s Kelly.”

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.

My little sister, Kelly, entered my life in 1991 when I was four years old. She was a beautiful baby, with a full head of jet-black hair and brown eyes like saucers; gigantic and inquisitive. As the youngest child born to my parents, she was adored from the moment she joined our family, with three older siblings to dot on her. Our fierce four consisted of my sister Crystal, the oldest; Kelly, the youngest; and my brother John and myself, sharing the title of "middle child." Close in age, born less than two years apart, we were each other's everything.

Were. It’s things like speaking of my siblings in the past tense that hit me hardest- like taking a bullet. We were four once, but now merely three, forever altered.

.

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Kelly and I shared a close bond, one rooted in our vastly different personalities and profound sense of trust. Kelly appeared timid and nervous on the surface, but there was an indescribable depth to her that few could fathom. She trusted very few things in life, but her unwavering trust in me was a responsibility I happily took on. I encouraged her intuitive and instinctive behaviors, unparalleled to anything I had ever seen. Her trust in me persisted all her life, even as she descended into darkness.

We were inseparable, and the love I had for her was almost maternal. Losing her meant losing a piece of myself. The day I got that phone call, a piece of me died too.

.

.

It was the summer of 2015, and I was planning my wedding. She and my other sister were to share the role of maid of honor. Her last of her many relapses broke me before it took her life. Regrettably, I went a route I hadn't traveled before — I shut her out. I told her she couldn't be my maid of honor or even a guest at my wedding if she weren't clean.

Kelly did not make it to the wedding.

I was never able to make this choice before, not until I had my daughter.

The end began when I told Kelly, who was living with me, my now-husband, and daughter, that she couldn’t stay with us any longer. After her longest span of staying clean in her six-year drug battle, she threw in the towel. Our connection made it easy for me to know when she was using.

Kelly was dangerously skilled in the art of hiding her drug use, often going months before losing control and being revealed. She could fool and manipulate everyone — except me. When Kelly would give up, I would feel it. I would feel strength leave my body, and I can't explain it any other way.

I believe Kelly and I were linked in this life and every life before, souls bound as fate intended. It’s easy to label a drug addict as selfish or manipulative. But Kelly would have given her life for mine in an instant. There are very few things I am sure of, but that is one of them. The all-consuming pain was felt as a needle’s venom slowly stole her away. I have no doubt she could feel my pain, too, every time she allowed the poison to circulate and destroy all in its path. 

Kelly was so much more than a drug addict. Those six months were the last moments I shared with my sister. Despite my entrusted responsibility, I had turned my back on her, and she all but insisted that I do it. She had relapsed yet again after six clean months. Six months with my sister, where I had a tiny bit of hope. Though small, I clung to it for dear life.

Until I couldn’t.

Kelly then moved to California and was in yet another treatment facility, battling an addiction beyond any level she had in the past. She purposely took herself out of my life and my daughter’s. She intended to spare us more disappointment. I don't think she intended to die, but I can't deny that she took that risk every time. Every time she felt her agony was too much to bear, every time she thought she didn't have a choice. Every time, she knowingly risked leaving me. Every day, I wish she hadn’t. Occasionally, I thought perhaps, knowing these risks myself, I’d be prepared for what inevitably happened.

Like her, I was wrong.

I could tell all the sad tales, such as her many near-death overdoses, places I've retrieved her from, things she's done, things done to her, people I blamed, people blaming her, miles I have driven, states I have flown, and lengths I have run — hoping to save my sister. But what are these but irrelevant stories to the saddest tale of all. Every one of those times I saved, my sister offered me nothing but time. Just more time to love her. More time to fear. Only to not have been able to save her in the end.

My Kelly was just... different. Unaware of how special she was and bursting with potential and intelligence beyond her years. She needed time to grow and experience the world around her to process her thoughts and curiosities fully. But her intellect only caused her young mind anxiety. I would tell her this burden would lift as she grows. I told her I'd be beside her while we racked up life's experiences to apply to her overwhelming knowledge. I said I would be there to help piece her troubled thoughts together to form an understanding. I promised her she would be all the wiser as an adult. That she would one day, with me in her corner, reach her full potential.

I was a fool to promise what I couldn't deliver.

Kelly only lived to age 24.

Hidden within the years before she left remain her childhood questions. I'm left, and not permitted to know why she failed to seek answers. Why did she leave these questions to burn a hole inside her mind? Instead of answers, Kelly eased her pain by signing over her life to a poisonous snake disguised as a friend — offering her relief and comfort. Kelly made a deal. To rest her mind, while it blurred slowly to blank, by her offered escape: heroin.

I held Kelly's hand in her final moments.

I watched the life leave her... my baby sister.

And then, I took her home and laid her to rest. In her maid of honor dress.

Eternally, she sleeps; with a permanent question mark to share in her casket.

Both incomplete.