When did she die?

I wear her clothes. I listen to her music. She and I share the same favourite colour and the same birthday. But I am not her. I walk her streets. Her keys are in my pocket. I am not her. I look like her. I share her taste in perfume. I am not her.

I am not her because she’s dead. She died a long time ago. I haven’t heard her laugh in years. The stirring feeling of hope so iconic to her? I can’t conjure it. Her humanity, her beauty, her gentle kindness. Memories. Photos. She danced around her home. She wrote, deeply emotive prose. I have rarely had an emotion that isn’t anger in years. She was a fighter, she poured her heart into everything.  There was complexity, a desire to be seen, understood, loved. I don’t. I don’t explain myself anymore. I’m tired. The sparkle in her eye. Her vivid imagination. Her pain, her empathy. All gone. The person who loved the sun on her face. Who loved “her family” who dreamt of marriage, hope and love.

She. Is. Dead.

Everything that there ever was about her. Everything I loved. It’s all gone. The person wearing her clothes isn’t the same person. The person who has her phone isn’t the same person. This isn’t a case of “the lights are on and no one is home.” At some point I actually did die. 14th February 2023. I was going to hang myself. The pain I felt was trying to manifest in death. Unfortunately, I did pass away. Because what I gave up to remain on this earth was…her. She died and no one cried. She died and no one noticed. She died and even I didn’t notice. For 2 years. If I got all my wishes. I married in a month, my perfect ceremony. My perfect husband. In the presence of my enemies… because apparently that’s important now. No one would notice I am not her. The children? Would never know their mother is an imposter. My husband would go decades married to the wrong Anna. There was an Anna. Another Anna. A before Anna. Someone with a heart and soul. But she cut out her heart to be okay. All that pain. She cut it out to survive.  This Anna is better in many ways. But she’s cold. She has no concept of happiness or joy. The best she hopes for is an absence of suffering. She no longer understands the kindness of a human touch. She’s been shown so much cruelty she remembers that a stranger touched her gently in January and it’s March. She remembers that she was in love in 2022 and that was the last time she was happy. Dreams of love, that died with the rope she didn’t use on herself. The weirdest part of it is the pretending. Pretending I am still her (I am quite good at it) I know what happens when someone dies. You get rid of all their possessions. Their books, shoes. All of it. But I use all her stuff. I pretend to want what she wanted. If she’d been given the love she’d hoped for she had the capacity to reciprocate. I’d be overwhelmed. Would I be able to hold my babies? Or would I have a thousand yard stare? Would I even be able to make a baby? Physically and emotionally do I have what it takes? Do I hold that much love in me? She did. She adored. She loved. She felt. She was one with her emotions. Emotions bounce off me like water off a ducks back. She deserved the world. She got nothing. She kept hoping and praying for something that would prove her life was worth something. Just one ounce of kindness. A modicum of support or some reciprocation of the gentleness that she showed others, maybe if she gave one more chance something would change and she’d have some proof she was on the right path. That never came. And one day the hope died and so did she. I can’t even process the levels of heart bursting joy she wanted for herself. An all encompassing love. A love for the ages. Being that happy sounds strange to me. What do you do with all that happiness? Do you just grin all the time? How does it work, do you feel this way 24/7 or are there peaks and troughs from a base level of happiness that I also don’t understand? This man, would be gentle and kind to you all the time? Respect you? What does daily kindness look like? At what point has he filled you up enough to reciprocate? Explain this concept of “hope” to me. What does one “hope” for? Peace? An absence of fear? Are they the same thing? The touch of a lover, how does that work? You’ll want it to happen, right? That’s the “consent” part, right? Feelings will stir in the chest? Soaring hope at the “promised land” you will create together. Contentment is what happens when all your needs are met, am   I correct? Love isn’t a painful emotion. Its one that brings you a smile, rather than a painful memory of a time you betrayed yourself. It’s something that is “worth it” I.e you are better off with your loved ones than without. Rather than them being better off because you are a backstop. I have so many questions for her. I wish she’d answer me. I played her favourite songs from childhood. Hoping to stir her. Thought of her favourite things. I took a walk in a place she’d remember. Nothing. There is nothing left to summon.  Not even a spirit. She’s gone. Left me to figure it out. I can read her words; I can look at her pictures and I can remember her passions. Family. Her own family. To right so many unimaginable wrongs. To love her husband truly. To care for her children attentively. There was so much there. The loss is hard to fathom, because I don’t have feelings. It’s hard to imagine having that much love in your heart when you have none. It’s hard to imagine having a blue Lamborghini when you don’t even know how to drive. I can’t even miss her. And no one else certainly does. Because that was the point she died of neglect and cruelty. They locked her away and starved her to death. She begged for the ropes. No, they starved her out. Always something more important. I listen to a song she used to vividly imagine dancing with my daughters around a kitchen. I remember the strength of emotion it invoked. But I can’t feel it. Was it joy? Love? Affection? Couldn’t tell you.

I hope wherever she is she’s at peace. Whatever that is.

Rest in Peace 1991-2023

Grace and courage

Annetta Mother Smith