The Flowers are Dying

Content warning: grief/emotional distress, school shooting, violence, and death.

Dear Bianca,

Your flowers died on Monday. The flowers you cared so deeply for, tended to like a child, sang quietly to, when you thought no one was listening. I tried, I really tried to keep them alive for you, but they don’t listen to me the way they did you. Maybe I just don’t see them the same, don’t breathe in their scent the way you did, don’t love them the same.

The withered brown stems and wilting petals look sparse above the earthy brown soil. It makes me think of your grave, the ground above you still turned fresh. I even sprinkled seeds over the soil above you, hoping they would adorn your cold bed with the flowers you loved. But they didn’t grow, and now your precious garden is dying— dead. Even I can tell it’s beyond saving. So soon after you’re in the ground, and that last remnant of you is already gone.

And that’s the worst part. I wanted so badly to keep them alive, your flowers, the one part of you still living, but I couldn’t. And now there’s nothing left. You’re really gone.

And you really did love them, your flowers. In your garden they practically leapt out of the ground— anything would grow and thrive in your hands. You could never stop looking at them, studying them, wondering about them. Your room still sits the exact same, bedsheets still rumpled, sketchbook left open, pencils still scattered across your desk. I’ve only been inside once since that day, and I haven’t had the heart to try again. But I remember how all those pressed flowers were scattered through your notebooks, pages full of them. Your desks were piled with books and drawings of plants and trees and flowers, flowers, flowers. My god, you loved those things.

As long as I can remember, you’ve loved them. You drew and painted them, grew them and pressed them and cut them and arranged them. You researched the language of flowers, their secret meanings, memorized each one. You could spend hours walking, stopping to admire each leaf and petal, noticing every detail.

I miss you, Bianca. I miss the little notes and drawings you would slip under my door to let me know that you were listening, that you knew when I was sad or angry or happy or lonely. I miss the way you always knew just what to say, how you were so gentle and kind. How everyone loved you. I’m so angry, Bianca. I’m angry at the unfairness of it all. You never got to go to college and study botany or travel to Europe or learn French or get married or have your big family of kids and grandkids and great-grandkids like you wanted. You never even got to graduate high school. 

All those dreams died with you. And everything we could have had is gone— a seed in the wind, suddenly blown away.

I didn’t realize how much I needed you until you were gone. How could you leave like that? It’s like you cut out a piece of my heart, left it dark and empty and bleeding, and all I can feel is this sickening emptiness, this gaping hole where you used to be. I’m so tired of hearing that you’re in a better place. You’re still not here, you’re not with me. Is it selfish to wish you were?

  Please come back, Bianca. I don’t know how to make sense of the world anymore. I don’t know what to feel. I hate that you’re gone. I hate you for leaving. You were always the sister everyone loved, anyway. You were the perfect sister, the kind sister, the loving sister, the beautiful sister, the peaceful and joyful and sociable sister.  

You were everything I wished I could be. I was always the cold one, the younger, the impulsive and short-tempered, the one who slammed doors and shut everyone out.

Everyone, even you.

I should have told you I loved you more. I should have told you every day. Why didn’t I let you in when I had the chance, when we could have just laughed and talked and told each other everything and been best friends?

Instead I hated you. Envied you. Despised you. I wanted to be you. And all I saw when you waited patiently outside my door or wrote me a kind note or asked me how my day was— all I saw was everything I was not. Everything I wished I could be.

God, I was so blind. I regret so much, Bianca. I let you slip away, I let your flowers die. Why couldn’t I have been a better sister? Why couldn’t I keep those stupid flowers alive? I should have held on tighter. I should have known not to take you for granted. And now I’ve missed my chance.

I should have known that everything can change in an instant. And it did.

I know there’s nothing I could have done to prevent it, I know that. But you believed in God. You believed he was watching over you. I can’t help but wonder— why did he not protect you, then? Why did it have to be you?

I think of the gunshots now. I can still remember the distant sound from the other side of the school. Which ones found empty air? Which ones found their mark? Which one found you?

I hate the boy who killed you, I hate him with all my heart. That’s the worst part about hating a dead man, all that hate has no where to go but in the ground.

I’m so angry, Bianca. I’m angry all the time. I’m nothing like you. Your grief would be quiet, mournful, deep. You would keep it all inside, cry quietly, only scream in your mind. Mine is red-hot, loud. It’s raw and scraping and screaming inside me and I am not quiet and gentle like you. I’ve always been angry, but now there’s nothing to keep it in check. I hate who I’ve become. I’m worried you would hate me too.

But I know you could never hate anyone. I know the paramedics said you died trying to save your classmates. They said as you were bleeding out in the back of the ambulance, you kept saying, over and over, “God, forgive him. I forgive him. God, please forgive him…”

And that’s the worst part. You most of all deserve to hate him. You should hate him. God, I wish you did hate him.

It makes me wonder… did you forgive me, too?

You’re so noble it’s not fair. What kind of person who lays dying prays for forgiveness for their murderer? Why couldn’t you have been selfish? Why couldn’t you have prayed for yourself, why couldn’t you have asked God to save you? I hate that you were so selfless, so perfect.  

But I know you weren’t, not always. Looking back, I can imagine the tiredness that rested deep in your eyes, the heaviness in your shoulders from carrying other people’s problems. You were always the one taking care of everyone else, and now I wonder— was anyone taking care of you? I knew you were struggling, too, you were just better at hiding it. Or maybe I just didn’t want to see it. I just wanted to blame you for everything wrong, everything I could never be.

I just can’t find it in my heart to forgive him. How could I? How could you? How is that fair?

I must be a horrible person for hating you, someone no one could hate. You loved everyone, talked to everyone, made them feel seen. You loved flowers and birds and painting and laughter. Of course I loved you. How could I not?

Why do you have to make things so hard for me?

I miss you, Bianca. I wish you were here now and I could talk to you and tell you that, really, I did love you, I always did, and I should have told you and showed you and reminded you every day. Sometimes it feels like all we did was fight. That was mostly my fault. How do I live with that, Bianca? Regret is a bitter feeling, like anger— but without the satisfying burn, only the sour taste of smoke in your mouth.

It feels like the fire of my grief has burned a hole in my heart, a hole where you used to be. It’s dark and scorched and barren. How could anything ever grow there? I keep thinking of you before I remember you're gone, each time lighting the fire anew, burning my heart fresh and raw every day.

The hurt is still new right now, my fury still hot. But someday, I’ll cool off. I’ll tell you all the things I wish I had when you were here. I’ll pray to the God you so surely believed in, I’ll ask him if you’re there with him, I’ll ask him if he’s real. Someday, many years from now, I’ll find it deep in my heart— the part that came from you— to forgive the boy who killed you. And maybe, when I do all that, I’ll finally be able to forgive myself.

I’m trying to imagine what you would say if you were here now. And suddenly it feels like you’re telling me, in that soft, gentle voice of yours, It’s okay. I love you. You’ll be alright.

It leaves me feeling hollow, aching, missing you. Wishing so deeply that you could be here, that I could wrap my arms around you. When was the last time I gave you a hug? I don’t know how to make it better, I only cry until I can’t anymore. I used to water your flowers when I felt sad, when I was missing you, pretending you were there with me, but it feels like I’ve lost that part of you with your garden, with your now-wilting flowers. I don't know what to do without you, Bianca. I feel like I let you down.

Your flowers died on Monday. But Tuesday, I visited you, and the seeds I sprinkled in front of your headstone had sprouted. And there— the first bloom.