On your seventh birthday...

Dear Otis, 

Today should mark seven years of your life. Instead it mark seven year since mine fractured. Two realities. Incompatible. Dissonant. I live in one, blanketed by the shadows of the other. A permanent superimposition of the life I never lived. You never lived. 

At first the shroud was opaque. So thick it obscured the boundary between “was” and “should have been.” Empty crib and empty arms embossed with silhouettes of tiny hands and warm snuggles. Unworn clothes and unloved stuffies imprinted with invisible stains and silent giggles. Two diametrically opposed stories. Playing in conjunction. 

Over the years, I’ve learned to disentagle the two timelines. Living in the “real” while allowing the phantoms to play hide and seek in the “alternate.” They hide. I try not to seek. Despite my best efforts, sometimes I turn a corner and unexpectedly find one. Crouching. Waiting. I look away. Pretend not to see. The game can continue. 

In many ways, your sister made my mental gymnastics both easier and harder. Her existence is too bright to house shadows. But her life is paradoxical. Born from death. Unknown to my parallel self. A blissfully ignorant self unaware of my dilemma. Never asked to choose but always fearful of the answer. 

Sometimes I worry you think my self-protection is your neglect. That by looking away from the shadows, I'm looking away from you. Ignoring you. Forgetting you. I could never forget. But I have to ignore. Those shadows don't belong to me. Not this version of me. The other one. You live in her reality. You died in mine. 

Today should mark seven years of milestones. Of firsts. Seven years of smiles. Of laughs. But instead it marks seven years of grief. Of tears. Seven years of coping. Of compartmentalizing. Today should mark seven years of your growth but instead it marks seven years of mine. Seven years of learning to live between the story I was promised and the one I was given.