My Sister Died on Valentines Day.
Serena Tucker, whom was relational to me in two ways: first my cousin and later my sister —died of an overdose of opioids on February 14 of this year.
Born to my favorite Aunt on my Mom’s side — raised by my Grandmother and taken in, affectionately, if not too casually by my family — the same cast of characters that preached to that blessed matriarchy that was Gram Tucker.
Serena exuded youth and lived a kind of life — one we as a society talk about while smoking outside of family functions but did and do not understand. We too often tend to see folks like her as an orphan that should ought to be grateful for whatever she has.
Today, currently clawing at the inside walls of my head, are my own personal moments of absence for Serena — now contemplated as laziness or blatant ignorance — depending on which day you catch me — my too often halfheartedness feels inexorably tied to her demise.
I know good people that would handle this much better than me — sans them sitting next to me here and now and like a last-minute decision to watch a fireworks display — I am writing inspired by the moments with Serena that have ended before I can get in a good spot to see the show.
As a young adult: Serena lost her Mother, my Aunt and then almost immediately her Grandmother, whom raised her and was the sole, reliable, consistent person in her life at the time — she lost both fixtures in a single Summer turning Fall.
Just one of the myriad results and what seemed to me gracious and obvious at that time, for Serena, and for everyone connected to the family, so much as they were aware, was the fact that my Father — near-forty-years divorced from my Mother — stepped-up and went about formally adopting Serena. My sense being that he felt the act — the ceremonial nature of it all — could only help her and I would argue, vehemently, that it did.
I don’t know about your relatives but where I come from — these types of familial situations are super-common.
Serena and I were effectively raised together — her living with my Grandmother, and always around, my Mom, Toni Tucker — her being young when she birthed me and unexpectedly faced with being a single parent — predominantly raising me to the person I am now while working nights at a neighborhood bar because it paid well — I was a latchkey kid but my Grandmother (or Nanny as Serena and I called her) was my true North in those early years. I remember sitting on her lap while she read to me some of the books I have only come to love later in life.
I choose to reject formalized religion as a construct but carry my Grandmothers’ personal Bible in my bag of books to this day.
Serena was an upstart — an appendix to that youthful dreamscape for as long as I can recall and from the age of twelve always referred to me as her Brother. I understand now, after seeing her soul drained and her body dressed for display— that this was just the first way I failed her.
I turned forty-years-old this past July and Serena passed away a meager eight months later — almost exactly to the day — at thirty-three years of age. She was viewed and cremated on February 29th and if you have never seen a young person prostrated at a funeral home— I would loathe to relate it for you. I found myself desperately grasping for logic — a burning nostalgic aesthetic — seeking any way to normalize the impossible.
Feb 29 and the concept of the Leap Year will have a resonance for me in that way that only an extra space every four years in the five-thousand-year-calendar could — memorializing Serena on that day each year because Valentine’s Day would be too severe— the personal and collective failure— searching for strength to recognize what I cannot change.
Serena Anne Tucker was creative, tough, goofy — tougher still. She was that one person we know and love and lament — she could be whatever she wanted but never what you wanted her to be — she worked as hard as anyone I know at her own life — she was sharp and street smart.
Had she hooked up with the right mate or boss, or family — she could of set the world on fire — beautiful — runway model tall, and annoyingly thin, with lips, eyebrows, and an attitude people would kill or pay for and sometimes did — she had a carelessness about her that made her endearing.
Should you find yourself standing still atop a tomb of such bitter regret — looking down and back up at yourself again — love and heartbreak — a fickle relationship with your own end-time — knowing in your gut that tragedy has no morality — celebrate my sister, my cousin, my friend.
I’m sorry, Serena.
I hold out hope that you are with Nanny and Aunt Kathy, now.
I’ll see you in my dreams.
@jasonmileslorimer
