Stephanie was my oldest sister. She came home less than she went away. There are only four times I recall seeing her in person over the 14 years she was a part of my life. All of them are very brief and hazy. In the first and earliest memory, I have a blurry image of her playing with my hair, and forming my curls into funny styles and shapes. I remember her smiling and laughing, although unfortunately I can't remember what her laugh sounded like. I'm not sure how I have that memory, or even how old I was, or if it was just a dream I had a long time ago that I've mistaken for a memory. It's so brief and too vague for my parents to confirm whether it happened or not, but it feels real, and so I've considered it to be so.
In the second memory, I remember Stephanie and Martin (her husband at the time) coming to our house with her new baby, Johnathan. I was still in elementary school, and again the only part of the memory I can recall the most is her smile. The other time she visited, I was in middle school, and she was with a different man. We celebrated her birthday, and she borrowed some DVDs that we never got back. I think all of us knew we might never get them back.
In between those times I remember hearing things like: “I talked to Stephanie today!” which was a rare event. “She's in jail again,” which was a common event. “She's in rehab...I think she's finally moving down the right path this time.” Which was also a common event. There was one thing I loved hearing though: “Sarah, Stephanie needs some clothes. Can you pick out some of your old ones for her?” I don't know why it always made me happy to pick out clothes for her. I guess that was the only type of way I could show her I cared or that I loved her. It was the only time I could help her.
Now, you're probably wondering, how did my clothes fit my oldest sister? Well, there are a couple of things I knew for a fact about Stephanie:
- We were fourteen years apart in age.
- She was only 4'11 and really skinny.
- She got pregnant when she was 16, making me an aunt at the age of two.
- She ran away.
- She didn't finish high school.
- She did a lot of drugs.
- She went to jail a lot.
- She lived in a lot of shelters.
That's only eight facts, and they're only facts. I didn't know her--the true her that had the beautiful smile--and that is what always hurts the most. My siblings recall memories of Stephanie that occurred before I was even born. They knew her before she stopped knowing herself. I imagine she became like a tumbleweed swirling around in circles, crossing path after path, but never staying on one, just continuously being tossed around by the breeze.
Luckily for me there are a few old family videos of her. In one she is dancing with my sister Giana on their bed, belting, “Boom! I got yo' boyfriend! I got yo man!” She loved to dance; I suppose that also counts as a fact. However, it was something I only got to know through videos. My dad said she would randomly approach people and say, “Hey! Look at this new dance I learned!” and then proceed to engage in some awkward body flailing motion. My dad said the funny thing was that they all looked like the same wacky move. She loved to sing, she was silly and sassy, although these are the things I never got to experience, and only heard from stories. So sometimes I use my imagination to fill in the blanks.
The fourth time I saw Stephanie is the most vivid memory I have of her. We had gone to my Tia Bernice’s house. Stephanie was coming over, which was an exciting event. I was with my sister Giana, and we waited on the couch for her arrival in a small, cramped, broken down house on the south side of San Antonio. We were watching some movie about a little girl and a horse that didn't really catch my attention, but waiting was awkward so we all pretended to be interested. Then, Stephanie came in, she smiled really big, she hugged me, and we sat on the couch and talked. I don't remember much of what she said, but this time it seemed like mom was right--she was doing better, she was on the right path. All I really remember talking about were her plans to get married to her boyfriend, and plans to throw a bridal shower. She seemed happy, but I remember feeling like she wasn't actually going to marry him and I'm not sure why. One of the things I regret most is that I went into the bathroom for probably about fifteen minutes, talking to my boyfriend of two days at the time. I was 13 and had no idea how truly precious this time was. It got late and we drove her back to her boyfriend's house. He lived in a sketchy area on the south side of San Antonio. I remember nonchalantly hugging her goodbye and watching her enter the house, not knowing that would be the last time I would ever see her. Not knowing that I would, ironically, be the last family member to ever hug her--the one who knew her the least.
A couple months later in November, her boyfriend called. “She went for a walk and never came back," he said. My mom told me this. I remember not wanting to think about it when I heard those words. I packaged it up and put it in the dark corners of my mind. It was as if I already knew, and was trying to hide from the truth. They always say the first stage is denial.
“She hasn't called in weeks, she was doing better this time for real, I have a bad feeling about this.”
Everybody had a bad feeling about it. My mom kept on repeating it every day, it seemed like: I have a bad feeling, she hasn't called, this time it's different. I could hear the words echoing in my head; I could feel them, but I kept pushing them away, I didn't want to acknowledge the gut feeling.
My mom decided to contact the police. I expected a "Law & Order" case could save the day, but I set my expectations too high. There was nothing they could do.
Giana came down near the end of November. She, my brother-in-law and I went to the police station.
“Honestly Sarah, the reason why I'm here is because somehow God has told me she's gone, and I need to find her,” Giana said on the way to the police station. I sat in the back seat, staring off at nothing, saying nothing, trying to cling to some form of hope that my sister was still somewhere in this world- just being a tumbleweed again.
I remember Giana begging the police officer, trying to explain that this time it was different, but they didn't buy it. They wouldn't put out a missing persons alert, or even try to find the Stephanie I knew.
“She's at risk, she has a bad record, and she is known to have done this before,” the officer said.
I remember Giana standing in front of him crying, and he said these things with a smirk. How could he not feel what we were feeling? I didn't understand how he could stand there. Cold, robotic, stating policies, not caring.
“These types of things happen all the time,” he said.
There was also this excuse: “She is old enough to run away, and if we find her against her will, she could try to sue.” I sat on the bench quietly, angrily, as the officer said these things with a smile at times, and even laughed at points when my sister persistently kept begging. We all left with less hope than we had going in. I had left with the feeling that the Stephanie I knew wasn’t human enough to be missed. Maybe if she was a different Stephanie the world would’ve wanted to find her.
It was the first day of the year 2007. We were in San Angelo visiting Giana for the new year. We had just finished celebrating her birthday with her, and we were headed back to San Antonio. We had only been on the road for probably about ten minutes, and then my mom's phone rang. I could hear my sister yelling frantically on the line, although I couldn't make out what she was saying. My mom said things that were vague, but my heart was beating hard. I could feel it, the thing I kept pushing away.
After she hung up she told my dad to turn around, and head back to Giana's. She was crying, her voice breaking.
“They called Giana. They think they found Stephanie. She's badly burnt.”
When I heard these words, the hopeful part of me clung onto those words. “They found her” and “she was badly burnt”. I had convinced myself for the moment that she was hurt and in the hospital--badly burnt but alive. I had already made up the entire story in my head. She had gone somewhere and somehow got caught in a building that was on fire. She was going to be okay. She was alright. She was alive.
Until the curious part of me had to confirm my theory, “She's just burnt right? She's okay right?
“No. Sarah. They think they found her body.” My heart sank when I heard the word body. She was no longer Stephanie in this world, she was just a body. I sat quietly in the back seat. Thinking. Not sure what I was thinking in between my mom's sobs and my dad trying to calm her. I think I just kept hoping that it wasn't her while at the same time accepting that it was.
Once we got to Giana's, she embraced me, tears streaming, face red.
“You're so strong, Sarah, you have always been the strong one.” I stood there hugging her, trying not to cry, because that's the one thing I can't allow myself to do in front of anyone. I didn't want people to see me sad and then feel sad. We moved into the house and everybody stood around awkwardly and silently. A few words were said. I don't remember what. I just remember continuously starring off in space, lost in my mind. I have no idea what I was thinking then, but we were there for hours. The only thing I remember doing is praying in the bathroom. “God, please don't let it be her. Please don't let it be her.” Over and over.
“The best prayers are done while in the bathroom,” my mom had said and still says, although I wasn't sure why she believed that. I figured she must have had some success with her theory. So what the heck? What else could I do to try and keep the sister who may have been dead alive? Looking back on it, it doesn't make much sense, but being rational in that moment wasn't an option anyone wanted to take. Nobody was ready to fully accept the possibility that she was gone.
The wait to verify whether or not the body they found was Stephanie's was one of the most miserable moments I've ever endured. The three hour drive back to San Antonio was silent. It was a suffocating silence, like the air had somehow liquefied and inhaling was fatal. That’s the way it remained the entire night. Once we got back home, I sat in my bed wide awake, still starring at something invisible, still waiting. I remember putting on a movie to try to help distract me, but I didn't watch it, I couldn't even hear it. Eventually I fell asleep, although I don't remember falling asleep, but I remember waking up. I could hear my mom crying in the other room. The phone rang. My brother John answered it. He paced up and down the halls. I knew this because his voice would get louder and softer.
“Yes it was her. We lost her. She's gone.” My brother’s words drifted down the hall and through my bedroom’s thin walls.
But it didn't feel like I got the chance to lose her. I never got a chance to have her like everyone else did, and now I never could. Oddly enough, that was my first thought, followed by the thought that my prayer hadn't worked. I asked my mom later why she believed prayers in the bathroom are the best. She said, “Because that is where I was when I prayed for Stephanie when she was a baby. They told me she didn't have a good chance of living. I prayed in the hospital waiting room bathroom, and a miracle happened.”
I stood in my room silently, my fists clenched. The reality had finally began to settle in, and now all I felt was anger. My eyes were open, but I didn't see out of them. I don't know how long I stood there, just thinking. Who did this to her? How can people do this to people? How can they just kill? What did they do to her? Where were they? Why? How? When did it happen? Months ago? A month ago? Did they torture her? Did she suffer? Why? Why? Why? I thought about revenge. I thought about finding whoever had done this to her, and brutally killing them.
When I imagine myself in this moment I see myself in a dark room, eyes wide, my pupils red. I see only the outline of myself in the midst of the darkness, and claws growing out of my hands. I guess the main reason I came out of the blood thirsty trance I was in was because I realized I felt inhuman. I felt like I was becoming whoever the monster was that had done this to her. I realized, then, that there was nothing I could do, I could only hope that justice was served to whoever he or she was.
Unfortunately, I never got the answer to any of my questions or had any assurance that any type of justice was served. The killer, whoever it was, could be dead now for all I know, or in jail for another crime they committed. All I know to this day is that Stephanie was found in Boerne, Texas on a ranch, her body burnt to the point that the only thing recognizable was the red rose tattoo on the back of her ankle. They found her body too late for them to trace who the killer was or what had happened. They gave up on her and closed the case; she was just another unsolved mystery.
Our family has our theories. Most are convinced that the killer was her boyfriend. By the time the police made it to his house to question him, he had already traveled over the border to Mexico. They had said that if he ever passed back into the U.S. they would stop him and question him, but I doubt they still care to do that now. They never cared to begin with. Who would? She was just a recovering druggie who had abandoned her kids and walked the streets. Only to us was she a mother, a daughter, a sister.
The news station called. They wanted to interview us about Stephanie. My brother John volunteered. The first question they asked was,
“Are you aware that your sister was arrested for illegal drug usage?”
My brother said a few choice words and stormed inside the house.
“They didn't bother to even ask about her. They just wanted to know about the drugs.”
He punched things, he growled, he yelled, he slammed doors, and I watched, feeling everything and feeling nothing at the same time. It was as if my body was slowly numbing itself, no longer allowing the pain to seep in.
On the news they showed a short report about her. Instead of asking us for a picture, they showed her mug shot. I starred at that picture of her. She looked into the camera, her eyes cold, her face sickly pale, and emotionless. It didn't look like her. It was like the Stephanie staring at me through the screen was nothing but a body, a soulless tomb. The world would never know her, and neither would I.
The police brought a box back from her boyfriend's house that contained all of her stuff, although all that was in there were gifts she was going to send her kids and my old clothes that I had given to her. Everything she owned could fit in a box, yet none of it was really hers. She had nothing. She died empty-handed. I went through the box, looking at what used to be my clothes that then became Stephanie's and now belonged to nobody. I noticed something was missing. It was one of my favorite tracksuits that I had given her. I remember wondering if that's what she was wearing the day she was killed. This was just another thing I would never know.
Her kids and ex-husband came down for the funeral. I remember Sabrina, Stephanie’s first daughter, sitting next to me. She held my hand while we watched the video Giana had made for Stephanie, with home videos and pictures showing the real her. I sat there staring up at the screen, wondering why they couldn't show this on T.V. instead of a stupid mugshot. Then, a short clip of the baby me played. I stumbled over to Stephanie as I took my first steps, she called for me to come to her, and I collapsed in her arms. This was the only thing I had as far as an artifact with me and my big sister in it--not even 30 seconds of video.
In that moment, I cried for the first time since I had heard about my sister’s death, and it wasn't because I would never get to know my oldest sister, but because I realized the person crying and grasping my hand was her daughter-- and like me, she never got to know this side of her own mother, and never will.
I fondly remember a man who worked at the funeral home. He was looking at a picture of a young Stephanie that lay on the closed silver casket. He pointed.
“This was her?” he asked surprised.
“Yes, that was her, my Stephanie,” my mom said proudly.
“Wow!” he said as he gazed over her picture in awe, “She had a beautiful smile.”
I felt relief settle through my body. Finally, it was someone other than family or a friend that could see the Stephanie that most of the world would never see.
Sometimes today I think about the homeless people, the people who are always drugged up, the people who make bad decisions, and even the people who kill other people. I see them on the news and I catch myself dehumanizing them. Then remember that this is a person. A person that I'll never know. They will just forever be another druggie, bum, or bad guy to most of the world, but there is someone who knew them, the other side of them. There's someone who loves them or once loved them. Someone for whom they are a parent, child, sibling, spouse, cousin, aunt, uncle, niece, nephew, or friend. I feel sad for whoever loves them, whoever has to see their negative legacy shown to the world, their good side a story untold. This is why I decided to tell this story about me and my sister, the tumbleweed.
