My sister is gone, that’s
what my mother told me, I wasn’t really sure where she had gone, but she for
sure has not come home yet, I think she’s dead. My mother doesn’t want to tell
me, she thinks that I don’t know what death is. Of course I do, I watch TV, and
I read books. Even the Bible, speaks about death, and she loves the Bible. I
wonder if my mother thinks my sister went to heaven, she often told her she
would go to hell. I am scared of God so I don’t know if I want to go to heaven.
I haven’t left our house since mother told me my sister is gone and I am not planning
on ever leaving. I can’t face the world without her, I can’t go to school
without her, I just don’t want to. She’s older than me, four years to be exact,
and still she was my best friend. She always made sure to cover for me, and she
thought me to read and tried to show me how to play soccer. She was good at all
sports, I sucked at all sports. I know that some of the other kids did bother
me because of her, but it wasn’t the only reason. I wear thick glasses, I have
skinny legs and I actually like books and math. She made sure the bullies kept
away from me.
I didn’t cry when mother
told me my sister was gone, I couldn’t because I didn’t really believe she was
gone. I saw my sister just a few hours before, she was so happy, she was
dressed nicely, she even borrowed a tie from me. She hated wearing dresses and
she often told me she wish she was a boy, like me but I know she also liked
being a girl. I am not a very good at being a boy, but she wasn’t very good at
being a girl either. I think that our father often wish she was a boy, and my
mother wish I was the girl, even if I know my mother wouldn’t have thoughts
like that, because that would upset God.
I don’t know why my
sister is gone and no one is telling me anything. The adults are whispering, I
know there is something they are hiding, but I don’t know what. My mother is
crying, even if she is trying to hide it, her eyes are red. I miss my sister, she promised to always be
here for me, and it makes me so mad that she left me.
I couldn’t really grasp the fact that Gracie was
dead, at first I didn’t believe it was her. When the police came by the house I
thought they had gotten the address wrong. I refused to think it was her, even
if I knew that the jacket they had with them belonged to her. A stupid navy-blue
blazer, something she gotten at the men’s department at HM, but there are so
many HM’s, it could totally belong to someone else. I kept on telling myself it
wasn’t hers. I just wouldn’t believe it, not until we had to identify the cold
dead body in the morgue. She was beaten to death, her face discolored, she was missing
a front tooth and the hair was darker than usual because of the dried up blood.
I screamed when I saw her body, it felt unfair, but I wasn’t surprised. My
husband just shook his head, and I saw tears in his eyes. I don’t know if he
blamed himself for not raising her right, because I do.
I wish she just would have
stopped being so stubborn, I don’t know why she decided to be so difficult. She was such a pretty child, she had long dark
hair that I used to braid, and I loved braiding that hair. I used to buy her
all those cute dresses, she would come to church with me and hold my hand, she
would look into my eyes and smile and I taught her all the prayers. I don’t
know where we went wrong.
The police call it a hate-crime.
HATE CRIME!?
I had her father beat her the first time I saw
her kiss a girl, but I never wanted her to die. I just wanted her to stop
making the wrong choices. I don’t know why she decided to be so cruel to her
own family. I wanted her to stop dressing like a boy. She once told me “Mother,
I am not trans, I like being a girl, I am just a LESBIAN, but damn, don’t I
wish I was a boy sometimes so you would let me be with a girl”. I bought her
nice clothes and she would just stuff the pink skirts under her bed and borrow
something ill-fitting from her younger brother. I know she was a good sister,
she cared for her brother. I don’t know how to tell an 11 year old that their
sister was beaten to death by people twice her age. I don’t understand why she
wanted to do this to our family, we loved her so much. What demons possessed
her to do this? Sometimes I think God sent her to me as a test, testing my
faith. It just makes me so mad that she did this to us.
