Remembering Alea.

Alea. I say her name out loud almost every day. My daughter, after all…is named after her aunt Alea. When Sophia Alea was born and they laid her on my chest, I spoke her name out loud to try it on my new baby daughter, and was taken aback by the force of life swirling around her name. Glittering in the air. Four years have marked the time since Alea died. I’ve taken all the light from her memories and it’s my lifeline, some days. The memory of her laugh. Does anyone remember Alea’s laugh? It was the silliest giggle…she would squint her eyes and smile so widely. Then there was that muffled laugh she had when she was lighting a cigarette, it was almost manly and nobody was safe from holding back even a smirk when that laugh came out. Then she’d glare at the cigarette and say: ‘I really need to quit this shit.’ Blue eyed, my sparkling girl. She had every good quality that any woman covets. Compassion, loyalty, strength born of high standards, strong work ethic, the ability to be so very unselfish. She was an amazing caregiver and gave up everything for the people she loved. She gave and gave, never taking for herself. That was her worst quality. It’s what killed her in the end, the inability to say no to anyone. She wanted to be a mother one day. She needed no one’s help, she was fiercely independent. She prayed. She was never afraid to show her emotions. She could burp SO LOUDLY, that it would scare the elderly and very young. She would give anyone a minute of her time. She was a wise old soul in a 22 year old body. She lived a lifetime and of course, I was not ready to let her go. I have no doubt in my mind that she would have dazzled all of us with her intensity for the rest of our lives. I sat in the church during her funeral knowing I was fooling everyone. I was pretending to be that woman of strength that my family is famous for. But Valium was holding my hand. My uncle was stoic, he was the first to give words in memory of my sister. He had done the same seven years earlier for my mother’s funeral. It was the strangest and most digusting déjà vu to be sitting there. Again. It angered me a bit. I looked around that church, it was filled with people. Standing room only. Did I wear sunglasses? I don’t remember. I had on my sister’s black coat. I had reached inside the pocket earlier that morning and found one of her cigarette lighters. It’s still there, four years later. I burned myself with it continuously that day. Burned my fingers, playing with it inside the coat pocket. Flicking it incessantly. A reminder that I was alive and she was not. All of my senses were heightened by the pain of her absence. I could feel the air passing against my face and I was glad it was winter. It should be cold and gray the day you put your baby sister in the ground, right? If it had been blazing sunshine, I think I would have screamed at the sky. Sitting in the church was torture. I was horrified to be separated from her body, I had just spent six hours the day before with her. Her hair had still be wet from the shower she’d taken before she got in the car and sitting in that church I couldn’t stop thinking about how she would have been so COLD if I hadn’t dried it. I was glad she had socks on. I wanted to wrap her in a blanket. It was so frigid in that church. I looked up and saw the stained glass church windows and the slivers of light beaming through the glass. The air was alive with specks of dust, it glittered in the spaces between the people. My dad nudged my elbow and tilted his chin towards the air. I knew he too, was watching the glittering dust and the beam of light that shined straight down from the ceiling and onto Alea’s small pink casket. Finally, some warmth.