to whit

For those who don't know, Whitney Nelson, my brother Andrew's girlfriend/almost wife, died last Sunday. Andrew is doing amazingly well and is still lost in his missionary work in Pennsylvania.
Last week I was too sad to write my own words. poetry is made for those kinds of times. I felt for a little while that the world was all sold-out of joy. but already I find it creeping back, slowly. shy and awkward--a little more jaded, more world weary, but essentially, the same.
'This is what the atonement's good for', Abby reminded me last Sunday night walking around Walden pond where the sun played on low branches that rose up out of the water like glorious forearms, 'for swallowing up pain and guilt and regret and death--leaving us with clean lessons.'

Now that Whitney is gone I am suddenly flooded with all the lessons I should have been accepting from her while she was still alive.
that life is good and exciting and that we shouldn't be afraid of it, that people are good and exciting and that we shouldn't be afraid of them, that there are a million ways to be alive and who am I to judge instead of love.

I want to thank her for what she gave me: the confidence to wear high heels as a tall person, a working knowledge of the wonders of hairspray (why didn't I know about this sooner?), the blonde streak in my hair.
I want to thank her for challenging me. my feminism, my femininity, my relationship with Andrew and with my mother.
I want to say I'm sorry for not accepting these lessons more gracefully.

I love you Whitney Nelson. We were growing our hair out in a race to our elbows. I think of you when I eat tortilla soup.
I am glad that I knew you and I am better for it.

LOVE.erin