Lights, Camera, Action!

If you google your name, your obituary is the first thing that pops up. After that comes North Georgia College's article about you, then comes AccessNorthGA.com's account of the accident, then comes my blog...

If you log into your Facebook page, there are 531 photos of you and 1,385 friends.

Impressive.

But what I remember of you barely touches that and though I have tried to recall all of the best/ worst of you in this blog, there was soooooo much of you to share. It adds up to a lifetime of laughter, cries, and yelling. And I'm not sure what to do but to continue to share and soak up what I can of your short 19 years of life.

Apparently, I am not the only one.

I was contacted back in November by a young man, with an impressive background, and an amazing vision, about being a part of his views on grief. His name is Andrew Morgan. My blog about you caught his attention and he called me up to ask if I would have the courage to share our story. He was raised in Roswell, GA but now lives in Los Angeles, CA and was taking on the enormous project of touching on the process of grief. He lost his father in a bicycling accident in which Andrew and his father were cycling down Roswell Road in Atlanta one day and his father was struck by a car, mortally wounding him. I instantly felt a connection with this amazing guy.

So I agreed. Now your life was not lost in vain and our family's journey to survival and healing will help others. His documentary, After the End, highlights the way that people from different walks of life and different stages of loss, grieve. How everyone turns after the loss of someone close to them is an amazing journey, and he has been so brave to document it.

I was sooooo nervous the day that they arrived. I actually felt nauseous. I had spent days cleaning and weeks trying to prepare for whatever they brought my way. I was not prepared in the least. They got lost on the way here....to be expected, and showed up in all of their glory, not quite sure of what they were walking into. I sat nervously at the kitchen table as they brought in and set up all of their equipment, sweating more and more as the set up more and more. Before long, my living room was rearranged, with giant lights shining on my love seat, two cameras set up, chairs were placed perfectly, and a microphone hung right above where I would be placed. It was quite intimidating.

Andrew made certain that it was a casual conversation, but it wasn't something that I was at all prepared for. I had prepped myself for days, if not weeks, on what I would say, how I would react, and my reactions to everything that they could throw at me. But as the scene unfolded, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Eventually, I took a deep breath and dove into the conversation, after which, I felt like a flood gate of information. He asked me so many questions about you, which I proudly answered and offered up some extras. Then he looked to me and asked, "What was your relationship with Chelsea?". Hmmmm. This threw me off. How was I to answer, in honest truth, what our relationship was? I replied, "Well, she was annoying....". And then I laughed because I knew that that was as honest as it could ever get.

Through the four and half hours of questions, ventures out to pick Reagan up, and reading of the blog, there were so many hard questions. The worst of which came when he asked how the events of the night that you died unfolded. I replied candidly, opening up about what I could only describe to him as the most difficult moment of my life. As I replayed the events of that night out loud to him, I kept screaming into myself, "Don't self destruct! Don't self destruct! You can do this!" But it was when I looked up, into his eyes that I saw the same hurt and pain felt in my own heart in the eyes of the man interviewing me. His were welled up with tears and I could tell he knew exactly what I was saying even before I said it. That is when I looked at him and said, "There are no words to describe that feeling, the emptiness, unless you are talking to someone that has experienced the same thing." And there isn't.

At one point he asked me about my wedding. Up to this point I had held it together pretty well. He asked me what you were like on my wedding day, being that you were my maid of honor. I told him about how impressed I was that surprisingly you were amazing that day. You were reassuring and kind and told me on several occasions how beautiful I was. You seemed to know exactly how I was feeling and that the twisted knots of emotions that day were running high, so you did everything you could to make it seamless. I told them about how you complained about having to wear a long brown dress because "brown just wasn't your color", and I told you on that day that when you got married you could stick me in the most hideous dress you could find. And then I lost it....because that day will never come to be.

We talked about you, and talked about you, and talked about you. At one point, I told him about how impressed you would be that the whole day was about you. They laughed. They were so kind and professional, but yet so attainable, like I would want to call them up and hang out with them at some point. I told them afterwards, as they were leaving, that I was nervous about agreeing to do this because I have a huge lack of articulation when it comes to speaking. I can make anything look great on paper, but talking to someone, comes out more like...blah.

I had told them that putting into words the way that I felt about you was indescribable and painful. This is fact. During one of our 'breaks' I told them about your lifelong dreams, one of them being, to live in New York City and work on Broadway. I can remember you talking about being part of it all and how important it was to experience the New York 'state of mind' and live like a New Yorker. You wanted so badly to be apart of the limelight and feel bigger than you did in Cleveland, Ga. After telling me your plan for New York several years ago, I laughed, yet again, and said, "You do realize that you need a small mortgage to buy a gallon of milk in New York?"


I would have loved to see what you could have done with your life and while it sickens me to know that I never will get that opportunity. Your life and death will not be in vain. I know that you could have accomplished everything that you dreamed, because that is who you were. A portion of me and a larger portion of what defined me lie in you, something I recently discovered. Just know that you did finally get the spotlight because that day was all about you. Your story and how it affected our family will help others, and that is well worth the pain and struggle, and I like to think that your ability to love and give shines through in that moment. I hope I made you proud because in those moments, I know I was proud of you.

There wasn't a creature stirring...

Two years ago you asked me for a pea coat for Christmas. I got you that pea coat, a grey one, from Old Navy. You loved it and wore it everywhere. You were wearing that coat the night that you died, it was stripped from you at the hospital and disappointingly enough, I cannot recall what happened to it after that.

I sat in church this evening and grinned recalling last year's church service. You made fun of my shoes, calling them "inappropriate for the occasion". We sat on either side of our mom during the service and sat there giggling our way through every Christmas song because of mom's insistence on trying to pretend to be part of an opera. Afterwards we all came back to my house and while I was baking some cookies, you and mom found The Sound of Music playing on TV. One of my fondest Christmas memories will always be the sound of you and mom belting out "I am 16 going on 17" in what can only be described as a very special "Kiessling" rendition of a classic song. Jared rolled his eyes and I joined in, and then we laughed hysterical. They say that scent is the strongest receptor for memory, but the sound of your voices will always ring true in my heart.

You showed up Christmas morning excited to see what Santa had left in your stocking. I thought it was hilarious that I had lovingly stuffed it with coal, a used candle, and a miniature sweater. It was that very day that we went to our family gathering at our grandmother's house and exchanged our last words to each other....and they weren't pretty. However, that wasn't the first Christmas that ended with us fighting. I remembered a Christmas several year ago, one of our first in Savannah, in which you asked for a Dane Cook CD. I searched high and low and finally found one. However, when you unwrapped it on Christmas day you quickly informed me that it wasn't the right one and that I needed to go exchange it for the correct one. Outraged and irritated, a heated argument that consisted of me calling you an ungrateful brat and you telling me that I don't do anything right ensued. It ended with me telling you to leave. A month later you called me asking if I wanted to go see a movie, as if nothing happened.

Christmas was your favorite time of the year, although you thought your birthday should be a national holiday, Christmas actually is. There was something about your personality that you could find the good in anything bad but it was as though Christmas was the one time of the year that everyone else felt the same, which instantly brought a more annoying projection of your joy.

I went to the Memorial Garden behind the church and left a flower for you before church tonight. While I have stood in that very spot lots of times before, it was the first time that I stood there and felt joy, the same annoying projection of joy that you brought to me for the last 19 years. And I did not shed a tear.

So while there isn't a creature stirring tonight there is less noise, loud voices, and singing and I know that holidays, birthdays, and other events will come and go in our lives and they will never be the same, for the first time tonight, I felt like we would be okay. I felt your irradiating joy and that it is a good feeling.

So Merry Christmas little sister, while it is not the same without you, I know that you have the best seat in the house for your favorite time of the year, and someday we will celebrate together again.

.

Election Day...

Bad news...Ron Paul did not win....

Perhaps it is good that you did not have to witness the uprising on Facebook, as friends were made and some lost, this morning when the nation awoke to a re-elected President Obama, although you probably would have shrugged your shoulders and went on with your day.

For the rest of us, it was an impressive display of a nation completely torn in half and one that will never be the same.

I participated in early voting this year, as it was that I was working 12 of the 24 hours of the day yesterday and knew that there would be no way that I could make it to the polls. But as I stood in line while the long ago retiree took my information sheet and asked for my ID, I thought not of the amazing upheaval that was involved in today, but more of your extreme passion to exercise your American freedom. Before you died you had marked on your calendar at your dad's house Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 as your very first "Voting Day". You died 3 days before you were able to exercise that right. So Vince and I went to the polls during the March 6th Preliminaries and voted for you. We wrote in your candidate, Ron Paul, a silly but necessary gesture to your memory. The calendar at your dad's house still holds that "Voting Day" mark, but now, many months later, a very different outcome. You didn't care what anyone thought about your choice in President and you didn't listen to reason, but that is exactly what this country's foundation was built on, the love of the freedom of choice. And I couldn't help but beam with pride when I heard you, very nonchalantly, voicing your reasoning in the choice.

I like to think that everyone thinks as though I do, learning to take life in little strides with baby steps, but unfortunately with so little knowledge of how quickly that can be taken from someone, how could I actually expect that?

You were so expectant on the unknown and so willing to take on the new challenges with stride. I can only hope that as a nation we can do the same. If one 'small voice' can make that much noise perhaps everyone else will listen. We can all hope. So while the nation lull in the wake of the presidential election, I will lull in the wake of the amazing hope that your memory gives me every day. And hopefully we can all do the same and grasp every day with the same hope and love for life.

I did not vote for President Obama and went armed into the polls with the knowledge that I would not vote for him, but it means nothing to anyone else my personal reasons for doing so. And THAT is the American way.

A day so important that my amazing baby sister marked on her innocent calendar on her first year of eligible voting but was unfortunate enough to not be able to participate in, really puts everything into perspective for me. It gave me the drive to make sure that my voice was heard, and really, at the end of the day, that is all that matters.

Who can really tell whether you were just being goofy or you were dead set on your choice for very "important" reasons, but who really cares...

While you did not sway my vote one way or the other, and for those of you that really knew us, know that we often went in opposite directions, you did sway my reasons for heading to the poll at all. You were so excited to believe that you were making a difference and that your voice was heard on the larger stage, so excited for the future and the life ahead of you. You had an insatiable hunger for the life that you were going to live and the life you were going to lead that you actually wrote the day of voting for the preliminaries on your calendar.

If only we could all be that motivated and excited about the lives ahead of us, regardless of the outcome....

I saw this quote by John Quincy Adams and thought about you: "Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost."

Happy Birthday!

So here we are...on this, your birthday weekend.

I had to work all day on your actual birthday, which was lucky for me as I was able to keep my mind distracted from what would have been a day all about you. I sat in my car for just a few moments and quietly said "Happy Birthday" to you before heading in for a long 13 hour shift. Except for a few moments of down time in which I would glance at my phone to see the well wishes and sentiments of friends and family, it was a relatively "easy" day that came and went as quickly as you had.

It was when I got in my car at about 9:00 pm to go home and turned up the radio that your memory hit me with full force. The new Kesha song "Die Young" was blaring. It was almost as though I was staring at one of those glaring "Open" signs outside of a late night diner. Mom and I had just talked about believing in signs and, there, staring me in the face was, not only one of your favorite singers, but her newest song about dying young....so much for the uneventful day.

Mom's day went much differently than my own, but she definitely had a better story. Sandy met her at Ingles to go to lunch for your birthday and her own but requested that she drive. She drove mom over to the church and grabbed some roses out of the car to help celebrate your birthday. As they walked back to the Memorial Garden at the church to lovingly place the roses, mom told her about your story with roses. When you were about 9 years old you were in a local production of Annie, playing the prestigious part of "Orphan Girl #4", you were the only one of the production to NOT receive any roses at the end of the production. This was a mishap of mass proportions that you did not fail to remind mom of for years to come..."You never got me roses when I was Annie!" So one day, many years later, mom went and bought you roses, laid them on your bed, and said, "There, these are for Annie!" So as Sandy intently listened to mom tell this story they arrived at the Memorial Garden and upon entering Sandy noticed that a bush, not far from your "coordinates" was blooming...what appeared to be a single red rose.

The next day mom went to church as usual. After the service she went out, as is the tradition, to the Memorial Garden to say "Hey" and noticed that not only the roses that were placed there by her and Sandy, but also two balloons. Father Scott informed her that your Aunt Lynn, had requested balloons put out there for you.

I thought about your birthdays and sadly couldn't really remember anything that stood out to me from all of the years previous, except for last year, which can only be categorized as a disaster, but I assumed this was due to our large age gap. I wish I could have remembered more and perhaps things will come to me as the years pass. I do remember you, much like myself, dragging your birthday out for the entire month of October, which always annoyed and impressed me all at the same time.

With that being said, Happy Birthday, little sister! I hope you enjoy your month, you deserve it!

So the cow jumped over the moon...

I've been thinking of you a lot lately.

Tonight I was staring at the moon through the slats of that rickety old fence that we put up and I couldn't quite see the entirety of the moon. It was annoying. So I found myself trying to look through each slat to get a better view.

This year has proved nothing more than a thorn in my side...and one in others as well, and we are all wondering what we will come out on the end with....perhaps you know the answer.

I remember the way that you were always so perceptive and intuitive to everything around you. You would always point out things that I never would have noticed. Be it a stray animal on the side of the road or a homeless person outside of a seedy gas station on the wrong side of the tracks in Savannah, you would always stop and wonder.

Since you've been gone I have found myself trying to be more perceptive, taking the time to stop and think about the actions I take and the words that I share.

A friend of mine, one that you know pretty well, got some rough news today, as you may know. This gave me a twinge of hate towards this year, but then I thought about how you would probably criticize me for being too emotionally involved and to SNAP OUT OF IT! But then you would reflect on the human emotions that you were so gracefully given (ones that I lack) and reflect on the pain that could be expected to follow. You had an amazing ability to precept what was going to happen and you were equipped with an uncanny skill of having human compassion. You were always so much better than me at that...perhaps my better half.

So after some time, I decided to try to get a better view of the moon. I took the human emotions and moved them to a higher ground, which you would have done. "So just walk around it, Holly", is what you always said when something frustrating was impeding my way. So I walked around that annoying fence and look what was seen...

Hard to believe it has been as long has been...I sure do miss arguing pointlessness with you.

Take care and I love you....

Patience is a virtue?

I was making an uneventful trip through Walmart the other day and on my way to the pet aisle I passed the 'scent' aisle. It was in the passing that I got a little choked up in the throat through a memory of you. I was remembering the time that we had taken a trip to Walmart, unplanned, but I had coupons for a very specific Febreeze candle. Upon arriving at this aisle to locate the appropriate candle, you decided to take control. you would pick up a candle and say, "Oh, this one smells nice". I would reply, "Chelsea, that is a Gain candle, I don't have a coupon for that one". This went on for about 25 minutes, you picking up the wrong brand and attempting to talk me into purchasing it, and me discouraging the brand that you chose because that was not what the coupon was for. After a number of minutes and extreme boredom setting in on you, you looked up and said, "So what is it that you are looking for?", I replied, "They say that 'Patience is a virtue', Chelsea". You then, in the glory that made you who you are, asked me who "they" was.

This brought me to a cross roads in my life because for the first time I didn't know the answer. I still to this day cannot answer this question.

As you already know, Daddy Al (our maternal grandfather) has left this world and joined you in the next. He left this world on 9/9/12 at 6:05 am. While this for me * trying to be completely honest, gave me some relief, as he was suffering, it brought new light to our family. It was during some altercations with family members over some REALLY dumb stuff that I realized how important the "Patience is a virtue" quote really is, because I have officially been to that point and back. It has made me realize that death really does 'bring out the best in everyone' and has made me realize that my place in this world really means nothing. There were so many times that I wish that I had you with me to take a ride in the car and talk about how crazy everyone else is and how normal we are (;), knowing good and well that that is so far from the truth. I miss you.

You were so great at making me feel completely normal in the fact that perhaps our family was nuts in their thoughts and reassuring me that everything would eventually work its way out. I'm not sure that our family knew of our connection because of our blatant display of dislike towards each other in public, but it was implied during one of these heated conversations that because we were "on the outs" during your death that it would not impact me at all. How false and far from the truth that could be.

Sophie asked during the funeral service for Daddy Al where he was. Her mother replied that he was in heaven with Aunt Chelsea. I looked to her and said, "And she is probably hating not being able to get away with everything she wants to because Daddy Al is there to keep a watchful eye on her".

I giggle to myself about that everyday. I liked to pretend that after 'burying' my 19 year old sister that there would be little else that could effect me in that way, again to be proven wrong because death is one in its own and there is little that can be done about its effects. We hope that we can be strong when we need to be and weak when we are alone. Although I have recently brought to my knees in a moment of strength and brought to praise in a moment of weakness...

So when you have given all that you can and feel that you can't give anymore and you feel yourself breaking, is patience a virtue or a burden...let me know if you figure that out. I guess I will learn to practice what I preach...

I know the Walmart 'scent' aisle will never be the same and neither will family gatherings without two beautiful and unwavering souls present but I can hope that you are there, by my side, regardless of how we left things between us, helping me along the way. Car trips will never be the same without you and something I apparently didn't say enough while you were with me but I love you!! I love you! I love you!

* I try to maintain my honesty in my feelings for the sake that somewhere, somehow, I am helping others, however I also try to maintain dignity for those involved in these stories/memories. Be patient with me.

Moving out or moving on?

Today marks the five month mark since you left us. It is impossibly hard to imagine that we have gone nearly half a full year without your sparkle and panache in our lives.

Coincidentally enough, I am writing to you today from my laptop sitting on top of a moving box in our mother's home, on the day that we pack up the house that you shared with her in Savannah in preparation for what, I can only hope, will be a much needed bright new future for her in Cleveland.

Vince and I started the journey down here yesterday evening, in an adventure that took us about 45 more minutes to complete than necessary due to some wrong turns, seedy neighborhoods of middle Georgia, and one very stubborn train impeding our progress. He had argued before we left that we should take the straight and narrow path through Atlanta; that this route would surely get us there quicker. Fortunately, I was driving so I set the course on my GPS and off we went on back road adventure. Though the route said that we should arrive at our destination within five hours, it did not take into account that, even with a GPS guiding the way, I had little to no sense of direction and we soon found ourselves weaving through small side streets in some "questionable" neighborhoods with some even more "questionable" residents. We did however, marvel at how no matter how uninhabited or economically strained these small backwoods town were that everyone of them had a Dollar General. We were still making good time when we hit a road block in the small town of Sandersville, shortly after Vince had pointed out the fact that this must have been a more "well-off" town due to it's grand Family Dollar, when a train stopped, dead in it's tracks, lay between us and the road to Savannah. My determination to beat the GPS time of arrival and my impatience won over and we quickly found ourselves trying desperately to find a way around the train. When, after 25 minutes of 'site-seeing' the local scenery of dark alleys, some beautifully challenged homes, and some locals carrying some adult beverages in paper bags, we considered defeat. After about 5 more minutes of waiting for the train to move, we discovered that all of the cars that were pulling up behind us were taking a hidden left turn instead of waiting, curious, we followed one of these vehicles and discovered that less than 12 feet from where we were sitting was a bridge going over the train tracks...boy did we fill stupid. We laughed at how unintelligent we were and I thought of all of the times that we had similar experiences together and how you were probably laughing right along with us. We indeed took the road less traveled.

When we arrived at mom's house, around midnight, we both decided to go quickly to bed for some much needed sleep. Vince took the couch and I took the stairs to your bedroom, unsure of what to expect. Brandie came over last weekend and packed up your room for mom, unable to do it herself. Her and Garrett took all of your clothes and some other miscellaneous items to the local Goodwill in hopes that some girl getting ready for back to school clothes could make good use of your uniforms. Your room up to this point had remained untouched, a shrine of sorts to the last time that you inhabited it. The scene that I arrived on was much different with boxes scattering the room and bare walls where your posters and pictures had once hung.Your closets were empty, with only a few lone hangers still in place. Deflated and a little relief was what first came over me. I didn't dwell on it long and quickly found my head on your pillow.

While unloading the shed today, of the thousands of Christmas decorations that mom has collected over the years, I was remembering the time that you went out there to get something, perhaps for the beach, and got stung by quite a few yellow jackets. They came up from the ground and surprised you. Mom called me laughing and told me of the story and continued laughing while she descried how swollen you had gotten from the stings. She gave you some Benedryl to help....

While I feel like her moving is a finality of your being gone, I am hopeful for her future. I can only hope that our family can piece itself back together; that we can find peace in a tragic year and learn to accept each other once again. Your 'other' room will be gone but I can hope that she will find a more permanent room in her heart for you and learn that you aren't found in 'things' but more in the memories of you. I write this blog for precisely that reason.

I've heard a lot about how God is 'testing us' and would never give us more than what we can handle, I guess this year has made us the strongest family ever, something that I have felt in my heart for my entire life. While I will miss Savannah as a place I set roots and much of our family followed, its nice to see mom take the leap of faith, it gives me hope for us yet.

I will miss the pictures on your wall, the bulletin board filled with sentiments from your friends, and the amazing treasures I would consistently find in your room on visits, I know that I know you and I will never forget the amazing person that you were. This has given us, as a family, a new beginning of sorts, and you will be with us every step of the way. So while I know that mom is moving out I know that we will never 'move on' from our loss of you, I know that you fill every moment of our movements through life...