by Sonja Lynn Mata
My brother committed suicide when I six years old. He was just 20 years old. And for that reason, I define my entire childhood around his death.
I was at home when I found out. I was standing at the corner of my father’s desk in the awkward space between the living room, the kitchen, and the foyer tiles. Someone was one the phone. One of my sisters, maybe.
But all I can really remember from that day: May 10th, 1997 is these three things:
1.When I thought of the word “suicide,” I would like to think that even at six years old I knew that that had meant that Christopher wasn’t coming home anymore.
2. Earlier in the day I had seen my father push my brother into a metal fence. They were arguing. I recall nothing of what was said. And my brother had cuts on his back.
And three is this: I remember standing outside of the bathroom door. Christopher came out and walked passed me. I like to make believe that he patted my head or smiled at me, but I can’t say for sure. And he had a brown paper bag in his hands. You know the ones without the handles. Soon after that passing I remember standing on my tippie toes to look out of the front door window. I saw my brother ride his back down our driveway. He wasn’t coming back.
The fence has long been replaced, but the holes that my father made with his fist are still on that bathroom door. And my sister still has Christopher’s bike somewhere in her garage. But she refuses to show me the spot where Christopher was found, burned.
He was found only in a town away from my native Wheeling, Illinois. And I wonder if I have driven past the spot without ever really knowing the significance of that place. And I wonder if the cops at the time were the ones that were charged and found guilty of racially profiling and closing cases because they were just too lazy to follow through with it.
And for a lot of years I was angry with my father. But this isn’t about him because my father is still very much a defeated man. I was just an angry child growing up. And to this day I refuse to truthfully admit that my brother’s death was the cause of my anger towards my fellow classmates. It got so bad that in the 5th grade I declared to my social worker that I had wanted to kill myself. And instead of letting me vent and cry in her office, she and the school notified my parents, that at the time I felt were the direct cause of my anger. Mark Twain Elementary decided my academic fate and sent me to an alternative middle school where I spent the next three years fighting the system and getting suspended.
I am 20 years old myself now.
And I don’t want to be angry anymore.
And when I turn 21 instead of doing the Court Street shuffle I plan to drive 400 miles to Christopher’s grave and lay a sunflower down on his tombstone and tell him
“I’m still here.”
Originally performed with The F-Word Ladies: Story time with F-Word. October 2nd, 2010.
UPDATE: A video of this performance is now up on Youtube for your viewing pleasure. This piece was part of The F-Word Ladies show Story time with F-Word which you can see here.
