Rambling thoughts at three in the morning.
Tonight I couldn't sleep so I decided to watch a movie (I chose Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because I finally read all of those books. They are actually quite good.). While walking back to my room after I put the DVD back where my parents keep them I noticed a sheet of paper taped to the side of my father's gun safe (Yes, it is a gun safe, get over it). I couldn't help but wonder how many times I had walked by this piece of paper since I had come back from LU without actually looking at it. This piece of paper had scribbled on it phone numbers of the various phone numbers of the friends that my sister and I have had.
That's all background. Looking at that sheet of paper, I quickly noticed what number had been added most recently. The number, which was written in my mother's handwriting (the only legible handwriting in the family), was my sister's cell phone number. Why, you may wonder, am I rambling on about seeing my sister's cell phone number? I believe the Christmas before last my parents gave me a cell phone. I almost never use it. I sometimes need to call my parents and have occasionally needed to call other people on it, but other than that it doesn't get much use. My sister, on the other hand, wanted one of her own immediately. Knowing how much she used the phone at home, I can only imagine that she used a large amount of her minutes talking and sending text messages. I know for a fact that the last text message she sent was on the night of her death. It was to Levi (the one eventually going to the Marines). She was telling him she didn't want him to go because "I'll miss you."
Anyway, the point of all of this is that seeing that number caused me to realize it was a totally foreign number to me. I don't have it in my cell phone's phonebook, I've never written it down, and I've certainly never called it. Assuming that she was given it for her birthday, she had the phone for six months. Never once did either of us call the other on our cell phones. That realization made me feel a sharp pang of guilt. My sister and I weren't the closest siblings, but I would have laughed in your face had you told me that she would get a cell phone and I wouldn't call her once on it in six months.
These thoughts, along with a few others that are too long to type up right now (I'm sleepy), are really making me feel like a total asshole.
Posted by Randy at June 24, 2003 03:19 AM