"Come back and shine just like it used to be."
Gaby called tonight. She sounded so happy. She was speaking like a child would to describe a vacation to her friends back home. She has spent the last several months in a women's correctional facility.
Beginning her story, she explains how, due to an error in the computer system, she was placed in a high security, long-term prison. The good news is that her friend Diana, who she has grown very close to, calling her sister, is in this place with her. Diana is serving a long-term sentence and is currently fighting for a shot at parole. The entire time she is explaining her experience there, I can almost hear the smile in her voice, and I am curious as to why. She tells me about the things she has seen and done since she has been there, and her voice begins to tremble. My sister explains that her and Diana were put in the same cell, and how it had saved her life. They were standing up for each other. Praying for each other.
This is where she begins to cry. Professing to me, as if I couldn't believe her, that she is so sorry for all of the things she has done. To my family, to her friends, to strangers, to me. She tells me how she reacquainted with Faith in this place.
Growing up my sister was my best friend. She tried to look after me. She would spend so much time with me. When she became pregnant as a teenager, I became jealous that there would be somebody else that she would have to share her love with. Shortly after that time, she started making more and more bad choices. We fell out of touch as the years went on.
Before my sisters incarceration, I tried to reach out to her. The first time anyone in my family had made an attempt. Everyone had either shunned her, or pushed her to the back of their thoughts. As if she would just disappear. Her trailer sat on the far end of our property, like a bad memory my family would try to forget, they'd avoid remembering she was there. We had found stolen items and narcotics in her bedroom before, but we didn't know how to deal with it. I was never home. My mother bore the worst of it, from my father, constantly trying to get rid of Gaby, and from Gaby herself. Finally, one day when my mother was broken down, again in tears with a look of surrender in her eyes. I was told by my nephew that my mother had found that Gaby had been sneaking bad company into the trailer, and had stolen things from people we knew personally. It was now or never.
He trailer is surrounded by weeds and trash bags. The earth around it is dry, with cactus rising up through the dirt. There is a feeling of sadness in the air. As if the atmosphere was lonely. After two knocks I can hear people scrambling inside. Voices in quick, low whispers. Gaby is not alone. She comes to the door and asks "Who's there ?", I reply "Peter, your little brother".
After a few more whispers, she opens the inner door. I can make out her silhouette through the screen door in the evening light. I ask her if she has a minute to spend with her brother. She is reluctant. We have not spoken more than two words to each other in a few years.
She steps out into the light. Dark circles surround her heavy brown eyes. Her shoulders slumped, as if the burden she is carrying has taken over her posture. She is strung out. We begin. I ask her how she has been, "Fine". Every superficial question I ask gets an equally terse answer.
I try to dig deeper, asking her what's she's doing with herself, if she needs anything, how can I help her ? She is so guarded. I feel helpless. Her words are so heavy. Every single one has pain in them. I try so hard to understand the pain she has been through. Abuse, abandonment, addiction, and so much anger. Most of this is the result of how badly her stepfather treated her. The way my father treated her. I tell her she can talk to me about her problems, that it doesn't hurt. She says it does, that it hurts her. That she hates remembering. She has spent her entire life running from the past. As if when she stopped running, all of the ghosts would catch up with her. Hiding herself in her addictions, in bad relationships. Anything to escape the past, temporarily. She stops, says she's glad I came bye. That's my cue to leave.
By the end of our conversation, I feel as if I did nothing to help. I feel weak. I am so ashamed of myself for not being strong enough, for whatever it was that I didn't have to help her.
Now, back to the present day. Over the phone, through her crying voice, she tells me that she keeps thinking back to the day that I came over to her trailer. That I helped saved her life. I let her know that she never has to say sorry. That we were forgiven far before she ever did any of those things. She has always been saved. That all she had to do, was ask for it, with all of her heart, ask for it. We laugh about some inside jokes and say our goodbyes. I can't stop smiling. I silently thank God while still on the phone with her.
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