When
you have three sisters, there is always someone around to play with. My two
younger sisters are my favorites as they’ll listen to pretty much everything I
say. Melody in particular…because we’re close enough in age that she enjoys the
same things I do, and I’m that much bigger than her that she doesn’t really
have a choice anyway.
I
might boss her around for my own gain, but I certainly won’t let anyone else do
that. She’s my little sister and I know
it’s my duty to protect her.
At
school
At
the park
Or crossing
the street…
I
know that if I don’t hold her hand and watch over her, she will run screaming
into traffic and be killed instantly.
Today
we are in the front yard and I am, as usual, trying to climb a tree. Melody, as
usual, is watching me. I finally manage to swing my leg up to the next branch
and perch myself there, basking in my own success. I swear my eyes are closed
for like a second when I hear an ear
piercing, blood curdling scream.
I would know that scream anywhere.
Melody
is lying on the grass after falling from trying to climb the tree and she’s
scraped her knee. The other kids on the street are laughing, and I feel like
yelling, “SHUTUP, you wouldn’t even have
tried!” Instead, I focus on what’s most important: getting Melody to mom. I
hop down from the tree, pick her up and begin carrying her up the long
driveway.
This
would normally be difficult for someone my age, but at 8 and ¾’s of a year, I
have already had plenty of experience’s carrying her. It’s one of our favorite
things to do in fact. Melody is smaller than many kids her age and because I
tower over most of my classmates, I see her as fragile and weak.
I like to carry her to make sure she’s safe and
protected.
I take pride in knowing that I can protect her.
I like being known as the strong one
and I know that Melody loves to be carried by me.
The
summers here are so blistering hot that I usually hide in the air conditioned
basement and will only go out if there is the promise of another air
conditioned place.
Saturdays
are usually the same…mom at work…my youngest sister Jamie sleeping until late
in the afternoon…Melody up around noon…and I am squeezing my eyes shut
pretending that our dogs don’t have to pee.
Once
Melody gets up and we watch what seems like hours of the Food Network channel,
we decide that a few hours at the mall couldn’t hurt.
The
second we step into the overly crowded, busy shopping mall, I realize our big
mistake: people we know are here, and
worse people we don’t. Turning back now would be too obvious, and I’ve
spent the last couple of months pretending everything is normal.
We
begin to navigate our way around and I grow more and more paranoid that
everyone is staring at us. I feel like we are freaks of nature at some
side-show circus; correction, Melody is a freak of nature at a side-show
circus. I can hear them whispering, staring, some are even bold enough to
point.
Does she know they are looking at her?
Does she know why they are looking at her?
I
try to quicken our pace, perhaps find a store to duck into, forgetting that
they are everywhere…people; they are everywhere and no matter where we go
they’re always staring at her, talking about her. I feel like yelling, “SHUT UP you don’t even know her”.Strangers are the worst; they feel no social
etiquette to be polite. At least people we know have the decency to pretend
that’s she’s normal.
My
need to protect is overwhelming and I have to constantly fight off the urge to
just pick her up and carry her out of there.
If I
can just get us out of the mall we can go back to pretending nothing’s wrong.
I know that I am the only one who can protect her.
I hate that I
always have to protect her.
Melody
announces she will be going on a diet.
While
this announcement doesn’t necessarily take me by shock, I am a little surprised
that she thinks her small but perfectly average frame could use a little trimming.
But, hey- to each their own. I figure she’ll probably forget about it in a few
weeks and move on.
She
doesn’t forget though- and I watch her week after week with such dedication
that she’d put any exercise buff to shame and her already small frame is
shrinking. I’m not alarmed by this in the slightest, in fact, I’m proud of her.
I’m happy that she has set a goal for herself and is carrying it through, and
rather successfully…
I
have no time ponder this…the semester is coming to a close and I’ll have final
exams in a few short weeks… only the necessities register in my mind: eat, drink, sleep, study.
Knowing
I have so much to do, naturally the first thing I look for when I get home is
my new magazine. I can’t find it in my room anywhere which leads me to Melody’s
room.
If
you can’t find something that belongs to you, you will always find it in
Melody’s room. It’s just a fact of life that we’ve all learned to deal with.
Walking
into my little sister’s bedroom I notice a bottle of liquid laxative on her
dresser. I pick up the bottle and shake it; it’s empty. Now I start to panic; we bought this yesterday! My academic mind
immediately recalls an article where a young woman abuses laxatives in an
attempt to purge all evidence of consuming calories.
Of
course this can’t be Melody…but my convinced mind has yet to convince my body
which is frozen in her room, holding the empty bottle and my heart is racing a
million beats per minute.
I have to tell my mom…
It’s the only
thing I can think of…
There’s NO WAY
I’m dealing with this…
I
walk quickly upstairs and then stop abruptly just outside of my mom’s room. I
need to make sure she understands how dangerous something like this can be.
Does
she know girls are doing this all the time to lose weight?
Does
she know that they trade tips on how to do it? I need to make sure that she
knows this is serious.
I
burst into her room and start rambling things off a thousand words per minute.
She’s shocked… good… no wait…
It
has nothing to do with that I just told her.
She doesn’t hear what I said.
She’s annoyed that I’m bugging her while she’s
doing homework!
I begin again.
Her
facial expression never changes…she’s not angry or shocked or even confused…she
just sits there nodding her head…I tell myself I’ve done the right thing
because as long as my mom knows everything will be okay right?
But
I wait… minutes… hours… days… weeks and there’s nothing!
Silence…
As I
park my car in the driveway, I can’t take my seatbelt off quick enough or get out
my keys fast enough. I run into the house and bee-line it for the bathroom;
rush hour traffic across the bridge can be such a bitch. The door is shut with
the bath tub running again for the 4th day in a row.
I’m getting really tired of this.
I
bang on the door begging to use the bathroom but there’s no answer. I’m forced
to run upstairs.
Since
when has having a bath at 4:00pm everyday become a regular thing?
And
it’s not just a bath…it’s like a 2 hour bath…she’s in their forever!
Melody
just get’s pissed off when I mention it and I know that it’s weird but what am
I supposed to say;
how dare you get clean everyday?
Like
all her strange behavior, I learn to accept this as “normal”.
Her
temper is also way out of control; definitely beyond the average teenage
explosiveness. Her outburst don’t even make sense, one minute we’re laughing on
the couch and the next she’s slamming her door shut screaming she hates my
guts. I can’t mention the growing mound of fast food bags in her room, or the
fact that she’s made a bowl of cookie dough every night this week.
Again,
school keeps me too busy to really sit down and add everything up and if no one
else is worried…why should I be?
These things do
not exist…
Silence…
It’s
chore time again, and mom is making our lists up. I don’t know why she bothers
anymore… my job is always to clean the bathroom... Simone stays out all the
time to avoid them…Melody only has to pick up our toys in the rec room and put
them in the box… and I’m pretty sure Jamie’s job is to watch TV and not bug her
sisters.
It’s
so unfair…
I’m
the only one expected to do chores around here…
I’m
not even the messy one…
I
think it’s just because I’m the only one smart enough not to eat the Windex.
The
girls are always playing barbies and leaving them on the floor. My floor… well
technically our floor… because I share a room with Melody, but I usually only
let her in there at night to sleep.
The
bathroom is disgusting. There’s always toothpaste all over the counter and wet
toilet paper on the floor. Sisters can be so gross. But, I clean it by shoving
everything in the drawers and wetting the counters a little. It’s only a
bathroom, how dirty can it actually be?
I
wake up Sunday morning and go to the bathroom but it is so repulsive.
There’s
a yellow ring about the tub
You
can barely even see the toilet bowl
And
there must be at least 2 weeks of wet towels piled up in the corner.
Good
thing mom hasn’t seen our bathroom in awhile or she’d lose it. Since I don’t
have to work today, I might as well clean it because I can’t stand the sight of
it anymore. I can’t remember the last time Melody cleaned our bathroom,
correction; her bathroom.
I can’t stand it
anymore.
Melody
no longer listens to me. The filth doesn’t seem to bother her at all because
she’s still in their all the time.
At first, I clean it pretty regularly. But, I can’t keep up with how often it
needs to be scrubbed. It seems like 3 days after I have thoroughly cleaned the
toilet, it is discoloring and moldy again.
I
give up and use the one upstairs to shower and get ready; the downstairs
bathroom is for emergencies only…and
it’s funny because it is like everyone knows it but nobody talks about it.Even though we hang out downstairs all the
time, everyone, except Melody, uses the upstairs bathroom.
Silence…
Eating
disorder.
EATING DISORDER
E-A-T-I-N-G
Disorder
You
know how the more you say a word out loud the stranger that would sounds? My
mom has just told me that Melody has an eating disorder and I’ve said it so
much now that I can’t even remember what that means.
I’m
shocked but at the same time relieved. I finally know what’s going on. The
first step to solving the problem is identifying the problem right?
Problem:
eating disorder
Solution:
get rid of the eating disorder.
Hmmm…
it must be slightly more complicated than that. Well my mom seems to have it
under control. She told me because…..well I’m not really sure why she told me.
Melody can’t know that I know, Jamie can never know and I’m not allowed to tell
anyone. Right, so how are we supposed to fix this again?
Silence…
I
try not to stare when I see her next. Does she look different to me, besides
the obvious weight loss? No, not really.
We
still laugh at the same stupid shows…we’re still up until ridiculous hours of
the night doing absolutely nothing… and she can still sing every word to every
commercial on TV. But now, she has an eating disorder.
The thing I hate most about this is that now that
we finally know, we can’t even talk about it. I’ve got the all of this weighing on my shoulders, and I’m not allowed
tell my friends- my best friends,
that my annoying little sister, the one who follows us everywhere has something
called an eating disorder. It was like I had been screaming at the top of my
lungs and my mother had just hit my mute button.
Silence…
I
stand at the edge of my room peering in. I know that once I step over the line
between my bedroom and the hallway, its fair game. Somehow I have to make it to
my ladder without touching the carpet… it’s impossible… but I decide if I can
leap quickly enough, maybe he’ll never know.
I
hold my breath and take a run at it, stepping down only once before I grab the
ladder and scurry up. That was close, but I don’t think I disturbed whatever it
is that lives under my bed. Melody is fast asleep on the bottom bunk, she can
sleep through anything. Thank goodness one of us knows there’s something
terrifying under the bed to watch out for. I crawl under my covers and clasp my
hands together,
“Dear Heavenly
Father, thank you for allowing me this safe passage to my bed tonight. I
promise to go to sleep right away. But please God while I sleep, watch over
Melody and me. Especially, Melody because she has the bottom bunk and will
definitely be eaten first. Protect her and watch over her and when I’m awake in
the morning I can take over. Amen.” I
immediately feel at ease. We will be safe tonight, I know this.
I
look over at the clock, 2:23 am and even though my homework isn’t done yet, I
have class tomorrow morning that I need to be alert for. I walk quickly from my
desk to my bed. The cement floors in my basement suite are brutal in the winter
and I have to run to avoid cold feet. I crawl under the covers and pull out my
notebook, something I’ve been doing the last couple of nights. At first, my
letters weren’t addressed to anyone but lately I’ve been talking to someone.
Someone I haven’t talked to in a very long time.
Dear God
So much going
on, no time for me.
She's dying
inside and no one can see.
How do I make it
stop? Make everything good?
She didn't ask
for help, she didn't know she could.
Now she's
screaming for it, but is it too late?
She's dying on
the outside,
Please don't let
this be her fate.
Is it over now?
Nothing left to do?
I love her God,
does she love us too?
How could she be
so selfish? Thinking only of her
Is this how it's
meant to be? Please God are you sure?
I've protected
her all my life God,
Since the day
she was born.
Placed in my
arms, I kissed her.
This beautiful
sight
God please don't
take my sister.
It’s
funny how even though I haven’t talked to God since I was 11 years old, I still
feel strangely comforted whenever I finish one of my letters. But I’m still
terrified. Terrified that He can’t protect or keep her safe anymore because
it’s no longer a monster under the bed, but a monster inside of her that we
can’t get out. A monster that is so powerful, it has taken away Melody’s
ability to reason, to understand that she’s dying, to see her hollow skeleton
in the mirror.
My sister is a
monster.
Something
more horrifying than I have ever seen…I’m scared to look at her when she walks
in the room… scared to hug her when I leave to go back to my house…scared to
feel every single bone in her back and know that today she is one ounce closer
to dying.
I
hate her for making me feel like this, for making me feel helpless. There is
nothing left for me to do but put a fake smile on my face when I see her and
remember to say I love you every single time I leave because I never know if
I’ll see her again.
And
what I am seeing is only a fraction of her because there’s no life left in her
face…
no
glow to her skin…
no
shine to her hair…
she
hides herself in baggy clothing and blankets.
She
hardly laughs anymore and no longer has the energy to sing all the songs from
our favorite TV commercials. I don’t know this new person but I am sad beyond
words to know she is leaving me.
Prologue
I
wake up bright and early Sunday morning and get dressed. It’s freezing outside
but I don’t let that deter me. I start the car and let it warm up for a few
minutes and then begin driving to my mom’s house. I can hear my phone ringing
over my music,
“Hi
Mom, no I didn’t sleep in and yes I’m on my way.”
Twenty
minutes later I pull into her driveway and hop into her car where Jamie is
sleeping against the window in the front seat and Melody is smiling in the
back. It’s Sunday and we are going to church together as a family like we used
to. It’s different now though... we want to be there… we have all made a
conscious decision to be there… It’s our day to spend together.
We
always go for lunch after and catch each other up on our week. I love driving
up to see my mom and sisters. That is something I haven’t felt in a long time.
I used to dread driving up there and I usually just left angry and miserable. I
no longer considered my mom’s house my home and I had to get out as soon as
possible.
Looking
at Melody brought more pain and anger than I ever thought possible to feel for
one’s sister. But now when I see her it brings nothing but love and a warm
smile to my face. She’ll be moving in with me soon, taking her first baby steps
to being out on her own. I’m nervous but excited.
Melody
is more than just a sister to me now, she is my best friend.
Someone
I love to talk to…someone who always has good advice and makes me laugh till I
cry.
Eating disorder...These
words have become so common in my vocabulary now that they are no longer
strange to me. I can say them quite easily and even bring them up in casual
conversation without feeling shaky or nauseas anymore.
In
fact, I say these words as much as possible to anyone who will listen. My
friends are probably sick of it, but they have no idea how liberating it is for
me to be able to say those two little words, eating disorder. What’s even more
impressive is the fact that we can now say these words around Melody without
fear that she will burst into tears or run yelling from the room slamming every
door in sight. We talk about her and her eating disorder all the time because
it is no longer a monster inside of her controlling all of her thoughts.
But
don’t get me wrong, the monster is still inside of her, I think it will always
be there, whispering to her in a weak moment, criticizing her when she looks in
the mirror. But Melody has something now she didn’t have before, her voice; her voice and our voices
fighting her monster together.
