it's ok sissy *explained*

I have two little brothers, Nicholas and Mathew. I am 6 years older than Nick and 8 years older than Mat. When Nick was around 1, just before we found out that mom was pregnant with Mat, I had this dream. I will give it to you in original format first. Then I will give it to you as the pieces have fallen into place and begun to make sense. Please remember that I was barely 7 and this dream was reoccurring for quite a while. Even after some of the facts came into play.

“We were in a living room/kitchen that I had never seen before. Mom sat in an orange pleather armchair that was as old as she was. She was pregnant. (Not in real life mind you.) Like really pregnant. She looked like she would pop and she just sat there looking down and smiling and rubbing her stomach. I sat at her side on the floor…we were in the sunlight shining through the door. It was very golden and vivid I remember. The sea of strange people started just a few feet in front of me and stretched on for what seemed like forever. Some I knew some I did not. I remember our grandparents ( my step dad’s parents) were there at the front. Some others I knew to be dead but these things happen so I wasn’t too disturbed by that. At the head of this sea and at the end of the living room was a large green statue…almost like the statue of liberty but not quite. I remember the woman on the ladder that held Nick up there on top of that statue. She seemed Asian to me at the time. Very dark beautiful hair, dark brown eyes, and creamy olive skin. She was beautiful but there was something wrong with her smile…I just couldn’t place it maybe I was just too far away…the crowd grew loud and moved like waves and she turned to say something…laughing with that funny grin and in slow motion I watched her let go of him…he was still a baby mind you…I couldn’t move. I was stuck and my mom seemed delusional. On the way down he hit his head on something branching out from the statue…something that guaranteed his death. I was screaming at this point (according to my mother I was having a night terror but I remembered everything) a few moments passed and the crowd grew quiet and for all I know they disappeared at this point…a small white whisp resembling my baby brother floated up from his place on the floor and with that sweet smile he waved and said ‘its ok sissy’ and he was gone…I woke up screaming and crying and surrounded by my family….every time.”

That may have been disturbing but I will tell you that it will only get worse as I add the facts.

“One week later we went to look at the new house mom and dad were buying. Mom was standing in the living room/dinning area holding Nick when a sheer white veil came down around her and she could not move…she called for my dad and it feel to the floor. She was kind of freaked out but said maybe her blood sugar was low. When she called my grandma (her mom) she told her that before she moved any furniture into that house she needed to open her bible to Mathew and leave it. She did as she was told and one week later we started moving in. Then one week after that she found out she was pregnant with Mathew.

The house that we moved into was unfinished so my dad had a lot of work ahead of him. It was built on stilts with a large deck but it looked like it was missing an entire floor on the bottom. He almost immediately began building a kitchen/living room downstairs. The very same kitchen living room from my dream…perhaps I transposed the image but it is so vivid in my mind I really don’t think so and neither does my mother.

When Mathew was born he was very sick. He had emergency surgery at 6 weeks that saved his life. We were all beyond grateful to say the least. I had a connection with him from the very beginning(a connection Nick and never had). He was a little me even in looks. We had a troubled childhood. Dad drank way too much(still does) and mom worked all the time(still does). I was the little mommy…I cooked I cleaned I did homework with them. We grew up despite our situation as pretty happy normal kids. We moved to a new town my 10th grade year and mom and dad divorced soon after. Mom stayed there as long as she could but finances found her having to move back to Hot Springs in about a year. In the divorce mom and dad split custody of the boys. Mom got Nick and dad Mat but it was all joint custody. Mom gave them the choice to go with her or to stay with dad and they chose to stay with dad since they already had friends there and were in school. Mom was heartbroken but she knew it was the right thing to do. At this point I was married and had one child. Dane my son. Mathew was a great uncle! He loved Dane and came to visit us often. Dad got 3 DUI’s in 6mo and lost his license to drive and so Nick had to get his early just to drive him around. Because of this dad went broke fast. He lost his job and couldn’t afford to live on his own anymore. So he decided he would move back to our home town with his parents. (they lived at the opposite end of our property which we sold to his sister who lives in it to this day) Mathew came to my husband and I and begged wanting to live with us so he could stay. He did not want to go back there, he said he needed to stay there. I talked to dad but quickly saw that there was no way (short of a court order) I was going to get Mathew. I remember the day grandma and papa came to pick them up. I was managing the local Sonic and they came to say goodbye…I cried like I was loosing my children. It was indescribable, the pain I felt watching them pull away. I said I was just being over dramatic. My husband and I split up for a while after that…maybe I really did change a lot. I moved into a small house next door to the house they had lived in. That was September and October 19, 2004 he and my grandpa were in their first wreck. It should have killed them but they made it. The only injured their backs slightly. Just enough to need physical therapy. In November Mathew was baptized.

Mathew came home for Christmas…he stayed with me. He was 14 and Nick and some old friends were joy riding through town and Mat caught me at Sonic and asked if he could hang out with me. We went to Wal-Mart cause I needed some stuff (mostly of the girly variety) all through the store Mathew hung on my arm and when I asked him what was wrong he just grinned at me and said I just love you that’s all…we stayed up all night that night and talked. He told me that he knew he was not supposed to live very much longer…I told him that I understood the wreck was scary and bad enough that it maybe should have killed them but it didn’t…I just kept telling him to stop being so dramatic…he next day I took him and Nick to my moms job and said goodbye to him…he hugged me tighter than he has ever hugged me and pulled away and made sure I met his eyes when he told me he loved me and the last thing he said to me was ‘it’s ok sissy…something told me right then not to leave but I had to. Those exact words slammed me so far back into that paralyzed, screaming to deaf ears feeling that I felt nauseous. But of course I shook it off and said goodbye for the last time.

That was Dec. 23, 2004, I did not talk to him again. He died (along with my dads parents) on Jan. 19, 2005 in a head on car wreck. At his funeral I met Nick’s new (secret) girlfriend. I was taken by her beauty…she had dark black hair and creamy tan skin and very dark brown eyes…she was beautiful but she did have one noticeable flaw…she had a scar on her top lip from a surgery to correct a cleft palate. It distorted he smile slightly but not terribly.

Mom had lost quite a bit of weight after the divorce and looked great. After Mathew died she began to look as if she was pregnant again even though she did not change her habits. Her doc told her she must be compensating for loss with food even though she told him she had not changed her diet at all. To this day she looks pregnant and can not loose it. The doc finally said she would need surgery to help it.

At the end of the summer we had went to decorate their graves (in a cemetery we played in a children; that is visible from the house we grew up in only one cotton field away). Nick took an opportunity when mom was at the van to ask me what my thoughts were on a few random names…I quickly put two and two together and realized that Brittany was pregnant. She was just 16 and he 17. The cultural differences where so tremendous that dad and her family did not approve of there relationship much less a child. I was quiet about the matter and love them both without condition. I have a beautiful niece from their union…but as it happens she ripped his heart out and now they are apart and he only sees his daughter a few times a month.”

So to recap -

Mother and I - mother pregnant/many implications…I unable to change the course

The crowd - the time that passed between knowing and reality

The statue - God? I’m not sure of this yet

The woman - Brittany I just realized after a recent visit it was her and immediately told mother…I pray I am not delusional but I promise it is.

Nick falling - the pain of loosing Brittany and his daughter as well as Mathew and our grandparents

The whisp I assumed was Nick - Mathew…he knew, he knew he was about to die and he wanted me to know it was ok…

Ok so I may seem like a total maniac but I promise you that all of this is factual and has fallen into place in my mind just recently…I don’t know if it helps explain the poem and i think I have everything. I sure hope so after three pages lol