Color Of The Sky

Irene, 11th - San Jose, CA
​
In every dream, I watch you die in my hands. I always stand in third person, mute and still, unable to save you. I hold you while your body turns cold.
***
Dear Little Sister,
You were born blue. Choking on the water inside your lungs, you fought for your breath as you entered the world from the ocean of the womb. I want to say that you lived. And you did, for a while, long enough anyway to master the basics of swimming. You loved the ocean, the waves, but you had some strange obsession with dolphins: dolphin plushies, keychains, notebooks, documentaries. We even went to Seaworld twice to see the dolphin show. But merely watching soon wasn’t enough. Eventually, and inevitably, you wanted to swim with the dolphins. 

As we grew up, our parents expected more from us. This meant more rules, more restraints. “Finish all your food, study as much as possible, practice the flute, and be back before dinner.” You broke. You always refused the food Mom cooked, skipped the classes Dad enrolled you in. You quit the flute after two days, because you thought you were wasting your breath in producing a note that sounded identical to a seashell cupped to your ear. 

Although our parents obsessively checked my grades on the online platform, nobody cared if you came home with a report card filled with Cs, or if you didn’t return home after sunset. “We can’t control her anymore. I think we should let go,” I overheard through the barrier of the walls, Mom whispering to Dad. 
Although Mom didn’t expect you to eat the food at the dinner table anymore, she always spooned out rice into your bowl first and set it down where you were supposed to sit (but didn’t), causing your place at the table to grow warm for a while.

The night you didn’t come home, I waited in front of your bowl of rice until my eyes began to stick together. I knew that you said you were hanging out with your friends, but I also knew they would already be in their homes by now. Just as the clock struck 10 PM, you slipped through the house through the gap you created during your halfhearted push. I didn’t ask. It was enough, at that moment, for me, that you were safe in the warmth of the house, protected from the wind blistering outside. 
That night in my dreams, you died in my arms for the first time.
***
Here is the dream I’ll never tell you:
In December, we sat on a bunk bed in Hawaii. You complained about shortness of breath. You told me not to tell Mom so you could go swim with the dolphins. I smiled and complied. I knew you had waited for this trip for a whole year.

In March, while the grass grew greener, your face became paler. I asked you how you were feeling. You snapped at me, “I’m fine. Don’t you dare tell Mom and Dad.” I didn’t. I forced myself to believe that you were getting better, like you always had. But this time felt different, like cold seawater seeping down into my lungs, my body absorbing the salt through the pores on my skin until I began to feel nauseous.
And just like that, you started to turn blue. While I was choking on brine, you choked on your very own breath. I froze in this fear, in this realization that you were dying. I simply could not accept that I would lose you. 

In the summer, we traveled to Korea. We ate food in the plaza smelling of scrubbed white tiles and plastic. You lay on my lap. Your body felt like fire, your breath shallow, like waves not strong enough to reach the shore. Mom and Dad were too busy eating to notice. Or maybe they were pretending everything was fine. I cried, “Save her! Please! Take her to the ambulance.” She’s dying. Those last words were the ones I could never say out loud. The words bit; I could not let them out of my mouth. I kept silent with salty tears streaming down my face. By then it was too late. You hung limp in my arms, your skin devoid of color. The fire extinguished, and your body morphed into an ashy stone. You were no longer blue.


Then I woke up drowning, drenched in cold sweat, lungs churning seawater into seafoam, my heart thrashing so violently I thought it might leap from my chest into the abyss of night. 
I knew you were already gone. 
***
When I try to unravel the meaning behind this dream, I always wonder why you never wanted to tell our parents about your illness. Was it the blank hospital walls, being trapped in the too-small bed? It couldn’t have been because you thought we wouldn’t care. You knew we would. Maybe that was the reason. We would care too much, and you wanted us to let go.
***
After the night, the night of the dream, I developed a new habit of checking your breath . I used to be a deep sleeper, but now I woke to the deafening silence of the room. I never dared touch your bed with all your dolphin plushies, but I ran my fingers right above your mouth and felt your breath becoming air. I listened for the sound of the ocean in your lungs. Your breath was shallow, turquoise waves drenching the shimmering sand. I could finally sleep in peace.

In these silent ways, warming up your place at the table, waiting for you to come home, checking your breath before I slept, I hoped that I could still save you. I knew you had strayed too far out into the ocean, where we could not reach you with our calls. But we hoped, one day, the current would carry you home, where we always thought you belonged. Or maybe you might swim back of your own will. 

At Seaworld, I learned that dolphins have no natural habitat; they roam around the sea for their entire lives. I wonder if you are so different after all. I wonder if you will ever find home, even if your home isn't ours.
***
The next winter, I watched your bowl of rice grow cold and harden. Nightfall greeted me with a raindrop. The drops fell onto the ground in an organized pattern, accelerating over time. When the leak in the ceiling dripped on your rice, I remembered. My mind flashed with your face, the color of the sea against the white tiles of the plaza. The heat escaped your body in an instant. If only I stopped you before, told our parents in that dream where you died, looked after you more. The rain reminded me of the ocean. I’m scared of the ocean. I dropped everything and ran to the market where you always went, feet halfway crammed into my sandy sneakers, soaking in the rain. The roar of the ocean plagued my ears; I felt smothered by the ocean’s cry.

I thought that I’d be able to save you this time.
It took twenty minutes to get there. I spotted you shivering in your t-shirt on the wet benches under the blue glow of the market lights.

I wanted to ask why you were outside in the rain, but I didn’t.
“I like the rain,” you grumbled at my soaked figure standing in front of you.
We walked side by side, enough distance between us for a third person to squeeze through. Rain surged down on us in patterns, overflowing and swallowing the world in blue noise, followed by silence. We breathed in this silence.
***
Dear Sister,
I dreamt of you last night. We swam with the dolphins in Hawaii. I was cautious stepping into the cerulean water, but you had already become one with the dolphins. You shouted, “Come!” but I was scared of the ocean. I watched you, your eyes burning with a new kind of fire not even the water could quench. “Don’t go too far!” I shouted. Maybe you didn’t hear me. Maybe you chose not to listen. 

From the sand, I watched you swim away with them, slowly growing smaller and smaller, until you melted into the color of the sky.