I was making dinner.
Pancakes.
The kids were playing loudly, and watching cartoons.
The phone rang.
I almost didn't answer because it was Grandma.
She always calls at dinner.
But I did, because it was Grandma.
Their are now two times in my life:
Before that Call and
After.
I can almost vividly remember my heart stopping.
I don't remember breathing.
I remember retreating to the basement stairs, to try and shield the children.
I remember yelling the words "Narcan", "overdose" and "you have to tell them the truth".
I heard the front door open on the other end, and many heavy work boots on her hardwood floors.
I remember hearing my grandma say, "My granddaughter says to tell you it's an Overdose. But, that can't be true"
I know that house well, so much so that I knew when they had reached the bedroom just by listening to their boots over the silence on the other end of the line.
The bedroom door opened.
Screaming.
I took in air again.
She's pissed.
This isn't good, but we can survive this.
She needs rehab, she's pissed Grandma called the ambulance.
We will get her help.
We will be so proud of her.
We will cheer her on every time she adds a coin to her collection.
She's done it once before.
The boots moved.....
but slower now, after they'd been in the bedroom.
I hear radio chatter.
Some boots stayed on the wood floors, some sounded to move outside.....so did the screaming.
Boom.
Someone dropped me, and I was left holding my phone while it's counterpart laid on the floor at the other house.
I waited.
I waited for someone to pick me up and talk, or to hang up on me so I could call back.
I couldn't do anything until then.
I sat down on the floor, on our dirty-web-infested basement stairs.
I never go to our basement.
But.....
I couldn't leave.
The kids couldn't see this.
I listened to the heavy boots.
I began to let the reality sink in.
It was not her that had been screaming, but rather screaming for her.
She wasn't mad the paramedics were there.
And they weren't running.
Their steps were steady, even.
I listened to the boots.
It was slow.
No rush.
I waited.
No one had told me what I knew was true.
The moment of Schrödingers Cat.
I knew what was reality, but until someone said it it wasn't real.
A moment where she was still both alive, and very much gone.
A moment where I was a big sister, and very much alone.
A moment where my children had an Aunt, and one where they had gained an Angel.
A moment with a future, and a moment of grief.
I waited.
I listened.
I live in that moment.
I've taken up residency here.
Part of me never left that cobweb filled stairwell.
Part of me felt so safe there.
Because it's ugly and dirty and scary, but she might be okay.
In purgatory.
And I'm scared to leave.
