Anna Akana - So Much I Want to Tell You: Letters to My Little Sister

OUR LIFE IS MADE BY THE DEATH OF OTHERS.

Leonardo da Vinci

A lot has happened since my sister killed herself.

She was thirteen years old when she died in 2007. If she were still alive, shed be in her twenties. Shed be old enough to drink, drive, get married, have kids. I sometimes cant believe shes gone. It feels like she was this person I knew who just disappeared. Kinda like in a romantic relationship. You spend every day with a person for years, until one day you break up. Then theyre just gone. Your best friend, your roommate, the person you spent a chunk of your life with. Gone.

Why exactly Kristina killed herself will always be a mystery. Was her suicide an impulsive adolescent decision? Or was it something more? In 2007, the suicide epidemic had only just begun to sweep the nations teen population. She was bullied in school before bullying was taken seriously and, worse, punished for trying to defend herself. When a group of boys threatened to beat her up after school, Kristina did what she was supposed to doshe told her teachers. For whatever reason, her teachers didnt take the threat seriously. They told her it was probably a joke. It wasnt a joke to Kris, though. She brought an airsoft gun to school for protection and was expelled because of it. This caused a lot of trouble for her at home.

Kristina was able to change schools, but she had a hard time adjusting. She didnt get along well with the kids in her new school, although she was usually great at making friends. When she began to fall behind in her classes, she was diagnosed with dyslexia. Instead of considering treatment, my family approached the diagnosis as an obstacle Kristina could overcome with time and didnt offer her much support.

Id always had my suspicions that Kristina might have suffered from bipolar disorder, or some other mood disorder. People didnt talk about mental health as much as they should have ten years ago. They still dont, in my opinion. But Ill never know. Maybe she was so hurt and alone and scared that she made choices without fully understanding how permanent they were. Maybe she could no longer handle being bullied and misunderstood by her family. Maybe, if she exists somewhere, she regrets her choice. Maybe its all of it. Everything.

KRISTINA DIED ON VALENTINES DAY. I was on a picnic with my boyfriend at our local park when a terrible feeling came over me in a wave. I leapt to my feet, screaming that we needed to leave immediately. Something was wrong. I packed up our picnic and bolted for the car. Thats when my brother, Will, called. He told me Kristina had tried to take her own life. At the time he didnt know that shed succeeded. But I knew. I felt it.

Weeks later I told my mom that, somehow, Id known something was wrong. Mom was always the one who had a little bit of a third eye. When she was a kid in the Philippines, shed have dreams of relatives saying goodbye, only to wake up and find out that theyd passed away in the night. Shed see ghostly figures standing on dirt roads, looking lost and confused. But when Kristina died, Mom said she hadnt felt anything. I was just sitting downstairs knitting, she said, beginning to cry. Later my sister came to my mom in a dream, to say she was sorry.

She appeared in my dreams too, except my dreams were nightmares: Me and Kristina in a bug-infested house, my arms wrapped around her, trying to protect her, but the bugs kept crawling into her eyes anyway. Then Id see her standing on the edge of a cliff, body distorted, looking back at me before falling off. These images still haunt me, even ten years later.

MY SISTER LEFT A SUICIDE NOTE, but I was never allowed to read it. Ive asked Dad about it all these years later and he insists that he lost it in a move. Whether thats true or hes trying to protect me, I dont know. But from what he told me, the note isnt kind.

Im sorry I make everyone so miserable were her final words. She had a special goodbye for her friends and cousin Frank, but nothing for us. Nothing for us because she was furious with us. Shed fought with every member of my family over something trivial, a sleepover she wasnt allowed to attend. She came into my room last, but I turned her away. The last thing I ever said to her was I hate you.

Her death didnt feel real for many, many days. I woke up the day after she died expecting her to be in her room, only to find Mom in the closet instead. Together, we cried until our heads felt like theyd cracked in half. The sick feeling in our guts only went away after several hours of sleep. Our faces, however, never changed. The blank, empty expressions remained. I had a constant headache from crying.

I AM KRISTINAS BIG SISTER. I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to comfort her. So many times I walked by her room and I could have said something. I dont blame myself anymore, but I do know that there were things I could have done differently. Things I could have said. And perhaps if I had, we wouldnt be where we are today.

I wrote her a letter. I said I was sorry, that I loved her, that I hoped she was okay wherever she was. I asked her to visit me in a dream to say goodbye, because I wanted so badly to see her one last time. I burned the letter, because it seemed like the only way to mail it to the afterworld. And then I cried.

I WAS DESTROYED BY Kristinas death. My whole family was. For a very long time it felt like we were broken. Like we were trying to shove the sharp, jagged pieces back together again, but they didnt quite fit.

Whenever someone casually mentioned suicide, hyperbolically or colloquially, I would have horrible flashbacks. I would feel a physical pain in my chest. Id have to excuse myself to calm myself down.

My therapist predicted Id engage in self-destructive behavior because I blamed myself for Kristinas death. Id told her I hated her, so yeah, thats gonna cause some guilt. I was the last person to see her alive before she cranked up the music in her room and slammed her door.

And my therapist was rightI began to binge on drugs and alcohol and I made toxic choices in friendships and relationships. I looked forward to going to sleep each night because it was my only escape from the reality of Kristinas death.

But, somehow, I made it through those awful years. And then something amazing happened: I found comedy.

I found a new outlet for my grief.

I started to talk about Kristina.

And I kepttalking about her.

God, now I talk about her in everything I do. I wrote this series called Riley Rewind years ago about a girl who could rewind time to try to save a classmate from committing suicide. I DIDNT EVEN REALIZE I WAS WRITING ABOUT HER. Seriously.