How does one write about themselves when life is a woven tapestry? There are hundreds of pieces, threads of wonder, beauty, horror, laughter, love. No matter what one writes about, I feel as though we all ultimately have to come to some form of reckoning within ourselves. Perhaps it’s a method of making sense of the jumble of thoughts that plague my mind–my soul–rearranging them in order to become enlightened; a form of mental healing. The only question that remains is what to write about? I could write about a moment, a seminal time in my life where I felt free; or trapped.
I recall the moment when I almost lost my sister.
**
Corsica was a place of unimaginable beauty. I’d wake up to the sounds of birds chirping, I’d draw the curtains open, lift the windows as a waft of warm air blew past my face. The dawn of a new day brought the sounds of crashing waves upon the beach. I watched seagulls fly high above grand mountains topped with thousands of emerald green trees. The salty sea air tickled my nose, a feeling that had turned familiar to me over the years. I ran my hands over the wood of the deck, I can still feel the little cracks and chips in the wood, clearly worn down by time. I walked upon the cold marble floor, down the hallways to greet my family and the sweet odor of French toast for breakfast as if it was any other day; how naive we were.
We all danced, jumped in and out of the pool, sang along, tapped our feet and bobbed our heads to the rhythm of the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 Soundtrack (we loved that movie), unaware of what chaos would befall the house. There’s always a calm before a storm, a moment before a wave crests and crashes upon the shore, and that day was no different. We were all calm, why wouldn’t we be? We were on vacation after all.
It began with my older brother, Keaton, and me playing with a plastic ball in the pool. It must have been catch or keep away. We laughed as water splashed upon our skin. The sun shone through the tiny cracks in the trees above, leaves caressing the water below gently, sinking to the bottom one after another.
When I looked over Keaton’s shoulder, I saw my little sister’s head floating gently above the surface of the pool. Her inflated, purple, lifeless body floating on the surface.
It was that image that brought the beauty of Corsica to its knees, replaced by a numbing apprehension.
Keaton yelled as he rushed over to aid her.
I remained mute, too stunned to speak, but waded through the water to get to her.
We looked at each other frantically. I was hyperventilating, my heart beating out of my chest.
We dragged her to the edge of the pool and tried with all our strength to lift her out, but we were too weak, the pull of the water too strong.
We both screamed desperately over and over until I heard the confused but terrified voices of my parents booming from inside the house as they rushed outside to drag her out of the pool.
Everything else happened in slow motion, everything I had known, and everything that there ever was became lost in the horror, in the chaos that had unfolded. I ran inside with Keaton and stood there, lost in a void without thoughts or feelings. All that remained was pure fear. I was still cold, wet, the water dripped from my swim shorts onto the carpet.
My papa ran upstairs, a fiery dread in his eyes that I had never seen before.
He was searching for cell signal, cursing, frantically texting for help. His voice was broken, as loud as a crack of thunder.
My mama yelled with the force of a thousand hurricanes as she began CPR.
All I remember was the cacophony of ear piercing screams–curses–and one word being shouted as my papa tried to call a helicopter, or anything at all.
That word was “No!”
A “no” that sounded as if it could bring someone back to life, and put a stop to the icy hand of death.
And it did.
I looked and saw my baby sister gasping for breath as water and vomit poured out of her mouth. The color in her face returned, an arctic blue that gave way to a rosy red. My parents wept tears of joy and painful relief, Keaton and I remained silent, and waited for the rescue helicopter to arrive. My mama had saved her. The origin stories of all great superheroes are usually tragic ones, and this one was no exception.
The last moment I can recall was the car ride to the hospital with my papa and the rest of my siblings. I remember because for the first time I saw my papa truly collapse.
I remember driving past the mountains, the trees, an environment that had once been a pleasant and relaxing oasis suddenly turned unnerving and sickening. I remember the silence, the deafening quiet and eerie sense of fear brimming under the surface, only to be broken by my papa’s fragile voice.
“You can ask anything, you know. She’s gonna be alright.” He said, attempting to hold back his emotions.
I nodded and looked at the car mirror where I met his eyes; my papa began to cry.
My sister, Amelie (named after the French film of the same name) is still here today. She’s eight years old, she’ll be nine in February, she was three when it happened. I can’t imagine what life would be like without her over-the-top, maniacal laugh, her courage to stand up to four male siblings. She was dead for seven minutes, the limited oxygen in her brain being the only thing keeping her from perishing. She’s smart; perhaps even smarter than I’ll ever be, certainly a more avid reader and thinker. What I mean is she thinks with her heart as well as her mind–a mind that saved her life.
**
Now that I know how everything turned out, there’s another memory, or, one final person that I must reconcile with; me. Or, the 10-year-old me, the one who carried my sister to the edge of the pool. I remember his dark, wet, curly black hair and his sunburnt body playing with his older brother, his blissful innocence that gave way to a maddening panic and guilt.
I tell him it’s okay, that she’s safe and he helped, that his mama is the bravest person he’s ever met, that it’s okay for his papa to be vulnerable, that his brothers will be there to look out for him, always. I tell him she’s going to live–and live–until all of the little lights in the sky go dark. I tell him that he learned how to save a life; I saved a life.
**
We all saved a life.
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