Sometimes you have to go to a dark place in order to write with authenticity. Usually I can do this without getting too fucked up over it. But sometimes, some stories...well, they've got little barbs and they stick, you know?

My current project is a short story about sisters. One of them dies suddenly and the other is left to close off her life. Of course there's a lot more to it than that.

Or maybe there isn't.

The relationship between sisters is a secret language. But it doesn't translate. I'm trying to capture the truth of it through writing, but it's eluding me. I have a sister, and to suddenly lose her would be a unique disaster scenario. When I go to that place, my brain has a strange reaction. It can't separate us. It can't stitch together a reality in which I am alive and my sister is not. Oddly, I can imagine us both dead with relative ease. Yeah, I'm morbid, but that's not the point. What a strange thing my brain has done, forming mysterious defensive neural connections and pathways around that relationship. I can't even get properly devastated thinking about the possibility, because my brain regards this scenario as impossible.

Sometimes I work myself into a state from lingering too long in those lightless corners of the mind. That's when I need to lay on the floor. But this is a far weirder situation, trying to access the ugly place and finding the way barred.

This is my first attempt to explore the sister bond in my writing. Now I wonder if I've been subconsciously avoiding it.

What weird things have surprised you when you tried to write about them?

Don't start your story with the weather. But this isn't a story and sometimes the weather get things started. I don't know why.

This morning I looked out the window at the low ceiling of clouds. Dark and tender, a sky full of contusions. Light rain grew heavy as I poured my coffee and stared at the battered funeral program on my fridge front.

You would have been a year old today. Except that's not quite right. Not quite true. I knew you'd never be a year old. I knew, even before I held you, taped into my arms with all your tubes and lines and other rigging safely secured over my shoulder. I knew. Maybe you were too awesome for this world, too special, too pure. Maybe. Definitely, you were too sick. 

It might be harder if I'd ever imagined you toddling after your big brother, or crowding around the iPad with my kids watching Minecraft videos. But I didn't, and you didn't, and it's still hard enough. You changed our family, kiddo. Made us stronger, sadder, closer, and more grateful.

This morning I sipped my coffee and thumbed out a text to your dad (my brother) and your Granny (my mom). Thinking of you... Because what else do you say? I walked out the door without an umbrella. My mascara was already ruined, and I wanted to feel the rain.

Happy birthday, Ben. I'm thinking of you.