The Shadow That Never Fades
Siblings Are Survivors, Too
by
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This story is about two communities. One community where the author lived her best life until the age of nine, and one community where her life ended when her sister and best friend inadvertently became the target of a father’s bullet meant for their mother during a domestic violent dispute. The story is about God's grace and personal growth. It's about how friendships are developed between siblings when they grow up as friends and the trauma that is experienced when that best friend is lost. The story comes from a teenager's perspective so readers can understand how young people interact growing up and the laugh out loud moments. The relationships include extended family of grandparents, uncles and aunts, and the closeness between cousins and how relationships were impacted by the incident. The book covers the author’s journey back to school, and how administrators contributed unknowingly to her devastation and undocumented trauma like being asked to clean out her dead sister’s school locker. The administrators were sensitive to things that were apparent but insensitive to things that were not .so obvious. Former students who attended the same high school, were asked to contribute to the book by talking about their personal trauma and experiences as students during the time. One student who sat next to Winkie in class said that the empty chair remained next to her throughout the remainder of the school year and how the sight of the empty seat traumatized her everyday. The book provides insights about what administrators can do to minimize the undocumented trauma that young people experience and how to address some of the nuances that contribute to a student's habitual trauma. It's about a grandmother's direct impact on the devastation of family ties. There is forgiveness and reconciliation and a family secret.
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About the Book
The book shares what it was like from a teenager’s perspective to lose a sister and best friend to domestic violence and how the memory of her death dominated her life experiences afterward. The book demonstrates the love between two sisters and highlights the difficult journey returning to school as a normal student when nothing left was normal. School became a perpetual prison accompanied by unscripted humiliation because everyone knew what had happened to her family that tragic morning. The author agonized over what to wear to school. She asked herself whether she should wear something subdued so she wouldn’t be noticed, or should she wear something trendy so students and teachers would notice her attire and not her. She wanted to talk to her mother about things she had on her mind like she used to, but the author decided against it upon realizing that her mother’s loss was much greater than her own. She loved both her parents, although her dad had a Jekyll and Hyde personality. The secret of why the personality was split is revealed at the tail end of the book.
About the Author
The author is a survivor of a domestic violence encounter between her parents. Her father forced his way into the home one morning to initiate a conversation to reconcile their marriage. Her mother was not interested, so her dad used a gun to initiate a conversation. The gun fired and left her sister with a bullet in the chest and another in her hand. The fragments of the bullet to the author’s shoulder still remain close to her spine because doctors said the location of the fragments were too risky to remove.