Namesake

Part of me is dead. She is buried six feet under with a custom-made gravestone that was copied soon after. Part of me is icy hands and pitch black and cries that will never be heard. Part of me is dead.

What is it to be born for death? You knew what it felt like to be dying before you knew what it felt like to walk. You were supposed to find salvation, a life without the pain you’ve known. And now what is there for you? Still, you tried – you fought every day to be here with me. In a way, you still are.

In a way, I’m inside of that grave with you, holding you close to my chest, experiencing nothingness and darkness and decay. I am a ghost walking alongside everyone else; it is my job to forget. So, I forget the days and I forget the pain and I forget the names of my parents and myself and God. And then it is morning, and I get out of bed and start the day.

Monday.

Tuesday.

Wednesday.

Thursday.

Friday.

Saturday.

I don’t go to church on Sunday. God does nothing to comfort me. Worship is shattered stained glass windows, breaking my skin with splintered pictures of God’s love. I refuse to listen to prayers from those who would tell me you have been condemned – born depraved, sinful, separated. I would sooner accept that the God they pray to doesn’t exist at all. It’s easier that way.

Sometimes, I imagine what it would be like to be dead. I imagine the big cities, busy people creating bustling streets, colonies of workers. I imagine speeding cars on highways, the smell of burning rubber on hot asphalt as drivers make their way to who knows where. I imagine my town, I wonder how many people would feel the loss of me. Would their combined grief even come close to my own? I imagine my son. I stay alive for him. I stay alive for you.

Every moment in time is playing simultaneously on an infinite loop in my mind. And I am a mother. I am a mother. I am a living, breathing extension of others – I am a mother. I am a mother. I am a mother.

This is her story. She is a mother. I am her daughter and I am you and you are the brother we share that kept her alive. I am you, and I am your sister.

I have always known that my name is not my own. I share my identity with history and with her and with you. Trinity Alexis. She originally pitched the name to my dad for my sister. He hated it, and she worried that you would consume this new baby. And so the baby was born with the middle name Riley, a peace offering.

And then there is the book. Cooky and strange and full of delusions. She cannot, therefore I cannot recall what the book was even supposed to be about. But there was one helpful thing about it. Nowadays, it might be referred to as manifestation. And so they write down what they want in a child. It is not you and so it must not be me. It is someone else. This someone else is a boy, and he is smart and active and he has brown hair. This boy ends up being my, our, younger brother. But before they get to him, they must have me.

I came to my mother, to myself, first in a dream. There is a field, I imagine soft green grass warmed by the sun, running the length of little legs and tickling bare knees. In this grass there is the girl with the middle name Riley, and she is being chased by another. By me. I imagine soft thudding footsteps, reverberating around nothing, and childish laughter erupting from little faces with big grins. The scene plays through my mind like old footage, stalling and crackling with wear and tear from being envisioned and replayed over and over.

I wonder if you would be proud of who your namesake is becoming. I wonder if you are reading this right now. Alexandrea Nikole, born to our mother and to me and to all of our ancestors and descendants. You are our mother and she is me and I am you, and we are unchangeably linked to one another from this world into the next. Part of me is dead, and that part is you.