In remembrance

Pip was guilt ridden and couldn’t meet the eyes of her mother, Kathy, or aunt, Lorraine, after Sinead’s death. Pip couldn’t forgive herself for going to that party and leaving her sister alone to take her own life. ‘I should have stayed home!’ she said to herself over and over again.

Lorraine and Kathy were both fully aware as to where Pip was going before they left for the night shift. Pip was on her summer holidays of what had been a very stressful year. How was anyone to know what Sinead had planned.

Lorraine sat Pip down on the torn, brown leather couch in the sitting room, sitting on her honkers in front of her.

‘How could you, or any of us for that matter, have known?’ she asked calmly trying to reassure her distraught niece who she loved like a daughter.

‘Yeah, but…

‘…. but nothing! Sinead was a grown woman who had obviously been in a lot of pain. Think of her as being free…free from her disorder…free from pain…just, free!’

Pip wiped the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her jumper, Lorraine doing the same.

‘If you’re thinking why you went to a party, you have to remember that me and you mom are thinking why…’ Lorraine sobs, ‘...why we went to work?’

Pip put a hand on Lorraine’s shoulder softly as she let herself fall to the ground and placed her bum firmly on the floor, her back against the sofa. Pip had never thought it from another person’s perspective. She was just thinking of herself.

She got up off the couch and sat beside Lorraine who cried into her shoulder, Pip gently stroking her hair.

‘It’s not just your loss Pip,’ Lorraine explained, ‘we are all grieving and everyone grieves in a different way. I’ve seen it in the hospital! I’ve been in the room where doctors have broken the news on several occasions, everyone taking it differently!’

Pip nodded in understanding.

‘Look at mom for example, she’s crying on the bed needing Valium to calm her nerves! I’m trying to make sure you both are ok! And you are kicking yourself about a party! That’s three people who are all grieving the same person in a different way,’ she wiped her eyes, ‘can you see what I mean?’

Pip nodded again and rested her head on her aunts shoulder where they cried together for what seemed like an eternity. Eventually, when they both had dehydration from the tears they shed, Lorraine led Pip into the kitchen and brought her over to the fridge where her end of year state exams from last year were laminated.

Lorraine asked Pip to look at the sheet of paper that was accompanied by a list for the shopping and pictures of the family all looking happy and joyous.

‘Do you know why this is laminated and on the fridge?’ Lorraine asked.

Pip nodded, ‘Sinead put it there to remind me I can do anything I put my mind to!’

‘Exactly!’ Lorraine squeezed her upper arm as Pip had a flashback of the last year, the year she did her Leaving Certificate.

 

It was tough for Pip having to do most of the studying for the Leaving Certificate on her own, because of covid. She felt like the syllabus wasn’t completely covered in the online classes her teachers were presenting. Pip brought that thought to Sinead, the wise one.

‘Why don’t you just do all of the past papers and memorise every fact on every page.’ They laughed. ‘I’m sure you’ll do great Pippy!’ she said whilst braiding her little sisters hair.

Pip decided to put Sinead’s idea in place and spent every day between Christmas and the exams with her nose in the books. She tried to learn every fact from every page. No one was more of a cheerleader than Sinead. Naturally her mood dipped a bit because she was stuck to the computer all day doing assignments, classes, and research on the laptop. But she got through it.

‘Why don’t you write out some flash cards of questions, the answers on the back obviously, and I’ll quiz you!’ Sinead suggested.

In the end there must have been a thousand flashcards, each broken down into subject and then topic. Sinead was great at motivating Pip when she was ready to give up. She always told her how proud of her little Pippy she was.

Sinead herself, because of her mental health condition, Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (EUPD), never achieved a full Leaving Cert as she got sick when she was fifteen and only passed four of the five subjects you needed. EUPD basically meant that Sinead processed her emotions differently. It’s a nasty condition that is usually accompanied with self-harm and suicidal ideation, but everyone, including Sinead’s doctor, were under the impression that she was really coming into her own and doing well lately. That’s why here death was such a shock. Pip thought that Sinead encouraged her so much not for only Pip, but for herself as well. 

Pip remembered the day she got her Leaving Certificate results. Everyone in the house was on edge for weeks before. It was a warm day and Pip got up from a sleepless night at a ridiculous time to sit on the bench in front of the window in the sitting room so as she could see the postman coming. She was hoping he would come early and put her out of her misery.

At 8:10, Sinead bound down the stairs, ‘did he come yet?’ she said speedily.

Pip shook her head ‘no!’

Sinead looked out of the window and disappeared for ten minutes. She arrived back with scrambled eggs on toast. Pip remembers laughing at the fact that Sinead felt toast fixed everything.

‘Why the eggs?’ she asked.

‘It’s brain food!’ Sinead answered producing two forks.

‘You do know I did the exams weeks ago…right?’

‘Oh,’ Sinead looked at the floor, ‘yeah!’

‘But what else would you eat with your big sister awaiting the postman?’ Pip smiled and took a fork.

Sinead smiled back and the pair of them enjoyed their eggs, laughing and giggling, the whole time keeping one eye out for the postman.

It was as Sinead was putting the dirty plate in the dishwasher that Pip saw a man in a green uniform on a bike.

‘He’s here!’ she screamed, ‘he’s here!’

Pip heard dishes clink together as the dishwasher door slammed shut and Sinead shuffled into the sitting room. Shuffling being the only way to walk in the slippers she was wearing.

‘Go out to him!’ Sinead nudged Pip.

Usually she wouldn’t have been so forward, but today was a big day for Pip. It was the day that could change her whole life!

She wrapped her dressing gown around her and walked out the front door, Sinead staying in the doorframe as Pip ran up to the postman, losing a slipper as she went, and he handed her the brown envelope. She waved it in the air as she ran back to the house, picking up the fallen slipper, and hugged Sinead before they both went in to see what kind of grades she had gotten.

At this stage Lorraine and Kathy were in the sitting room sitting on the edge of the couch.

‘Well…’ Sinead said, ‘aren’t you going to open it?’

Pip waited a moment and did some deep breathing. She couldn’t believe that it all came down to this one envelope, this one letter. She opened it tentatively and, with Sinead looking over her shoulder, went weak when she saw that she had gotten 7 H1’s, the highest grade possible. She stared at the paper in shock as Sinead danced around the room. The world was at her feet and it was all due to Sinead.

Pip was one of the 67 students who received 7H1’s in the leaving cert that year. Something Sinead was really proud of. Sinead cried that day, Sinead cried a lot of days, but that day they were happy tears. She confessed that she knew Pip was smart but never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined the her getting 7H1’s. If she was honest, Pip thought they had made a mistake and put the wrong name on the letter.

 

Pip’s attention was brought back to the room as Lorraine squeezed her shoulder. She then moved on and asked Pip to look at another laminated piece of paper on the fridge, the one that told her what college she got into. Pip had another flashback.

 

‘I wonder if I’ll get physics in trinity…...’ Pip said into the abyss.

‘You have 7 H1’s, you’re definitely going to get your first choice!’ Sinead reassured her as they were back in the living room eating eggs and looking for the postman again.

Pip didn’t run out to him this time however, she was rooted to the spot as he deposited the mail in through the door.

Sinead picked the mail off the ground. There were two letters, one for Kathy and then one for Pip…her destiny lived in this envelope. The path of what she was to study was decided in this envelope. Sinead handed it to her, but her hands were stuck to the bench, her gaze fixed on the cat outside walking by nonchalantly.

‘You do it!’ she said to Sinead, Kathy and Lorraine in the background.

Pip had her eyes firmly shut, and it wasn’t until Sinead read out the letter saying that she got to study physics in trinity could she breathe freely once more. Sinead danced around the room alongside her aunt and mother who all encouraged Pip to do the same. As she rose from the bench, her legs like jelly, she let out a massive scream and joined the other three…oh what the neighbours must have thought!

 

As Pip was brought back to the kitchen, she noticed what Lorraine was doing. She was trying to get Pip to focus on the good memories she had with her sister, the ones she’ll cherish forever!

‘Now then,’ Lorraine started, ‘have you been to every lecture so far?’

‘Yes’

‘And have you gone into college every morning on the first train and arriving home every night on the last?’

‘Yes’

‘Do you not dream of one day getting a PhD?’

‘Yes’

‘Do you see where I’m going with this?’ Lorraine pulled Pip in tight. ‘You are on the track to being someone brilliant…and all with the help of Sinead! She will be with you at every lecture and in that big famous library, she will be looking over your shoulder and metaphorically braiding your hair when you come to work that’s difficult. She will be there, but she will be there in spirit now! It’s that spirit that we have to keep alive!’

Pip nodded and smiled up to her aunt.

‘Now,’ Lorraine started, ‘I know you party hard! And I’m not on board with the weed either!’ she said sternly, ‘but everyone has their vices!’ she smiled. ‘Just try and keep off the weed and please,’ Lorraine begged, ‘please let your liver have a break over the next few days! You want a PhD, not cirrhosis!’ She kissed Pips head and proceeded to go upstairs.

 

Pip looked at the two laminated pieces of paper on the fridge and her eye was drawn to a picture of her sister on her back. She was transported to the day that was taken.

 

They were in the west of Ireland on holiday, the five of them; Pip, Kathy, Lorraine, Sinead and Michael all stuck in a campervan for a gruelling three nights. It was a hot July weekend, Ireland receiving a heat wave for once. As Siri was sending the family on a tangent as they tried to find their caravan park to pull up for the night, Pip realised that everyone was on edge, except her. She had slept for most of the four-hour journey, only waking as she could feel the terrain change under her.

She rose her head from what was a couch and a pull-out bed and gasped in awe of the undulating fields that rolled for miles and were dotted by cows. She could see that the width of the campervan exceeded that of the roads, but there was nowhere to turn around. Luckily, they didn’t come across another vehicle for what seemed like miles as Siri was useless and although they had booked a place to park their campervan, they found somewhere better by happenstance.

The place was deserted, there was nowhere to get electricity or have access to running water, but they decided to throw caution to the wind for just one night. They parked in the driveway of a dilapidated cottage. Its roof was caved in and its windows were broken. Pip stretched before exiting the vehicle.

Firstly, she was hit by the beautiful salty aroma that was the sea. Her heart skipped a beat as she moved out of the shadow of the campervan and saw that across the road, there were rocks, a stream trickling through them, and then the great big Atlantic Ocean. The tide was in and the waves crashed off the rocks as the sun was high in the sky shining down on the ripples of the stream.

Pip decided to cross the road and investigate. Surely, they weren’t the first people to stop in this gem of a place as there was a dam in the stream that screamed out that it had been made by kids playing. She looked left and saw that the road winded up a hill. Then she looked to her right and saw the road from whence they came. ‘No wonder it was bumpy!’ she said to herself as all it happened to be was two dirt paths divided by a green strip of grass. She noticed the blackberry bushes and made a mental note to collect some before they left in the morning.

Michael wasn’t an outdoorsy type of person at all. He was more of a computer geek and yet he got into the spirit of the trip. He took out the fishing rods from the campervan and asked everyone if they would join him in finding a place to throw the hook into. The other three said no, but Pip immediately said yes. She wasn’t going to take no as an answer from the other three and when Pip had something in her mind, she dug her heels firmly into the ground making the other three cave.

The family walked up the hill and found that at the top there was only three more abandoned dwellings and the sheer rock face of the coast. Pip began to jump from rock to rock and eventually made it to the sea. The others followed as Pip exuded enthusiasm.

They took the barnacle’s off of the rocks to use as bait for the fish. They never in their wildest dreams expected to catch anything, but with only three fishing rods, they caught seven fish. They couldn’t tell what kind of fish they were but they stopped trying after catching number seven as they felt they had enough for a hearty dinner for that night.

As Lorraine gutted the fish, something Sinead and Pip gagged at the thought of, Michael got the barbecue ready to cook them on. Sinead and Pip went on adventure down to the stream across the road where they built up the dam a little higher. Pip remembers how Sinead laughed as she slipped on a big stone and her foot fell into the water. Pip had never seen Sinead so happy.

That night they ate like kings and retired into the cramped campervan shortly afterwards, the fresh air knocking them out.

The next day Lorraine somehow managed to turn the vehicle around and they were all set to search for their original destination when Pip spotted a beach to the left of them as they drove. Lorraine pulled in as far as she could and the five of them donned their swimsuits and headed for a swim. After all, it’s not every day you get to swim in the great Atlantic Ocean.

With the sun high in the sky, its rays dancing on the ripples of the water, Pip and Sinead ran in from the sand and Sinead jumped onto Pips back. Lorraine happened to take a picture of the two right before a wave came and knocked them off of their balance and they both fell, laughing and happy into the cold water. Sinead quickly got up and wrapped a towel around her like a blanket as she shivered from the shock of the ocean. Pip wasn’t far behind.

 

Pip took the photograph off of the fridge and wiped away a tear with her thumb, touched Sinead’s smiling face and headed upstairs.