This is for my sister Kayla.
Kayla, I still remember the sight of clouds slowly encroaching over the Haymarket sky nearly three years ago. That was the night we became like siblings, but that night only happened because of what had happened the year before at Edgewood Theatre.
On that first night, our youth group went to a movie. Just before it started, you sat down behind me to ask how I was doing. For the first time in a long time, I wanted to answer that question honestly.
Later that night I did.
I told you I was lonely. I told you everything I’d been taught to believe about the world seemed to be disintegrating around me.
Put simply, I was an insecure, frightened teenager reaching into the darkness, hoping to find someone who would listen.
That night, you did.
Over the next year, I learned to trust people again. I learned to be honest about who I was and what I believed. In doing that, my soul found rest and healing. Most of that started with you and your willingness to listen when I tried to be honest.
After that first night at the movie theatre, we trusted each other.
Maybe that’s why you called me that fall evening a year later when we were freshmen at UNL.
I remember answering your call, shocked to hear you on the other end choking out words between sobs as you tried to tell me what was happening. An hour later, we were the only people outside Scooters and I had no idea what to say. I’d never seen you like that, your usual bubbly personality crushed so thoroughly. Instead, I saw a hurt, scared and confused girl whose soul had snapped.
I think you had hit the same wall I did the year before and now the roles were reversed.
I remember you telling me that God seemed to disappear when your mom died from cancer. Then you gave me a laundry list of the ways insensitive or self-righteous Christians had hurt you in recent months.
Women at church expected you to lead a small group of high-school girls, to know all the answers, to always act like a “good Christian girl.” They wanted you to be the example for their daughters that they should have been.
And you weren’t even sure you wanted to be a Christian.
Then I talked - even though I had no idea what to say.
Truth is, to this day I can’t remember a word of what I told you.
I can remember the sight of cars slowly rolling by. I can remember seeing street lights reflected in puddles pooling on sidewalks. But I can’t remember what I said.
I probably shared my own stories of depression where God seemed utterly lost to me and the Christians around me behaved just as appallingly as those close to you.
But I don’t remember.
I just remember feeling close to you.
I remember being scared for you too. I remember promising myself that if anyone made it worse for you, I’d drive to their house and deal with them myself.
And I remember wishing to God I could do something to fix everything for you.
I remember the helpless feeling that told me there was nothing I could say that would solve all your struggles. On nights like that the world is too dark for rehearsed truisms. Even genuine words that express only sadness and shared hurt can do so much. There’s nothing we can do to fix things, but we can be together.
Sometimes that has to be enough.
That night as I drove home I watched the distant lightning through tears of my own.
I remember talking to you often in the weeks following Scooters, including a day in the Union when you told me and a friend in the most matter-of-fact tone I’ve ever heard you use that you were done being a Christian. That you just didn’t believe it anymore.
Then I remember seeing you come back in subsequent months, learning to love the people who had hurt you, or maybe just tolerate them.
I watched while you struggled to make sense of a life without your mother - something you’ll be doing your whole life. I watched while you learned that God often grants us severe mercies for our good, even though they hurt like hell at the time and often continue to hurt until the day we die.
Through that whole time, our friendship continued. It grew with the aid of coffee and tea, late-night games of Scrabble and many conversations about life, faith and trying to make sense of what we saw and felt day-to-day. And today, you’re one of my oldest friends. More than that, you’ve become a sister.
Flashes of all these memories returned to me last week when you called on a clear spring day to tell me you’re getting married this fall.
When I first heard you say it, there was an initial stab of nostalgia as I went back to the movie theatre, then to Scooters, then to late-night games of Scrabble - at which I’m still convinced you cheated to win.
Then a final one when I remember sitting across from you at The Mill as you first told me in more-excited-than-usual tones about Jeremy.
When that nostalgic moment broke, I faced the same problem I did three years ago outside Scooters. I didn’t know what to say.
So in case I didn’t say it on the phone - congratulations. I’m proud of you.
Growing up as an only child, I’d wondered what having siblings would be like. I often wished for one because I would get lonely.
Because of you, I know what it’s like to have a sister. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Jake Meador is a junior English and history major. Reach him at jakemeador@dailynebraskan.com
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