Pledge of Allegiance To Us

My sister died and we had her funeral and the next day I moved into my mother-in-law’s house next door.  I just kept packing and carrying and unpacking and carrying.  Those boxes were so heavy, weighed down with dishes and all that damn crystal that someone gave me that I never wanted.  Weighed down with grief. The boxes are all empty now, but I carry the grief.  I carry it with every step I take.  It’s in my lap when I sit down.  It sleeps with me at night. 

Life without her is so heavy, but inside me there is a lightness in my heart.  Because that’s where my sister is.  Her spirit is in my heart, and her spirit is light and laughing.  I put my hand over my heart a hundred times a day like I am saying the Pledge of Allegiance.  It is my pledge of allegiance to her.  To her lightness and laughter. To our fifty years of life together.  To her children and grandchildren and all the children that will come. To her passion for freedom.  To her passion for all the weird, struggling, beautiful people in the world that our blind society does not want to see or understand or accept.

I pledge allegiance to all the causes my sister and I cared about and cussed about and said we would fight for. 

To hell with all that crystal.  To hell with all the billionaires who don't feel safe enough in their mansions. To hell with society's opinions about who is real and who is not, its rules about who can speak and who can't, and who is in and who is out. (If science is out and education is out and the planet is out, who is going to be in anyway?)

I pledge allegiance to birds and trees and lost dogs and people who have no sense of direction and can’t navigate parking lots or paperwork or life.

My sister died, but I pledge allegiance to the world we dreamed of and wanted to work for.

My sister died, but I am alive and I pledge allegiance to the us that is bigger than just her and me.

I pledge allegiance to all of us.