Death Is Weird

There are moments when the house still remembers how to be loud—laughter at the sink, a show murmuring in the background, sisters braiding joy into ordinary chores. I turn toward the doorway and, for a breath, expect to see Amelia there. Grief has made time strange: some days are endless, some vanish; love, somehow, keeps stretching to meet them both.

I am a mother learning to live with an empty space that is anything but empty. I set the table differently. I hold the quiet with two hands. I find myself talking to the air and trusting that love knows how to travel. I miss the silly, the sacred, and all the tiny rituals that stitched us together. And still, we keep going—because love insists.

Today, I’m opening this page for my youngest, Nadzia. The voice that follows is theirs alone—unfiltered, specific, brave. We are sharing it with their permission because love deserves witnesses. If you’re here, thank you for reading gently and holding space for a child telling the truth of their heart.

Thanksgiving. Me, Zosia, and Amelia were sent to the store to get ingredients for some Mac and cheese that Amelia wanted to make. I was sitting in the passenger seat, Zosia was sitting in the back, and Amelia was driving. I remember bonding with Amelia over a band that we both liked, discussing our favorite songs and when we started listening to them. I remember us having the same favorite song. She then tells me that a guy she was friends with wrote a song about her and introduces me to their band. I honestly really liked that song and a lot of their other music. They're one of my favorite bands now.

Dinner time. We ate early, maybe around 5 but I don't remember clearly. We were all talking about our week, sharing what we were grateful for, sitting around plates with tons of food, Jerome cutting off his broccoli stems to give to Amelia because he knew she liked them. After we ate, we cleaned up, all spending time in the living room, a show playing in the background. Time moved quickly and it was already night, Amelia had gone to her friend's house to spend the night. 8:05pm she calls me asking to bring in a package that was delivered. That's the last conversation I ever had with her, and if I'd known that, I would've thought of something a lot better to say.

Sometime near 6am, November 29, my mom wakes me up. She's in a rush and clearly panicking. She tells me that Amelia got into a bad wreck and is in the hospital. She says that I can go back to bed but she and Jerome were going to the hospital to see if she was okay. I was tired so I was quick to fall asleep after they left. 7:15am. I'm woken up by my mom again. This time she's calmer, but not the content kind of calm that gives reassurance, the one that's hanging on by a small thread, threatening to snap but holding because she knows she has to be grounded for her children. She gently sits on my bed, tears welling in her eyes as her words hit my head like a batter trying to hit a home run.

“Amelia has passed away.” That stung. That stung like rubbing salt into bare flesh. Like opening your eyes under a bucket of lemon juice.

I just froze. I didn't know what to do or say. She saw that and said she would give me some time before leaving. The rest of the day I could hear my sister sobbing in her room, sounding angry, I guess she heard the news too. Everything felt weird after that. Days felt like eternity yet weeks passed in the blink of an eye. There were lots of people always coming and going, dropping off dinners and leaving condolences. I recognized some; close neighbors and friends- but others I didn't know. The people stopped coming after a few weeks.

It was already December, then January before I knew it. Christmas was empty and new years was quiet. The house held almost no decorations on the inside, my mom saying they brought back too many memories that they weren't ready to face. Winter came and went. The snow melted and the leaves slowly grew back into spring. May was the hardest month, the 15th would have been her 20th birthday. We bought some fresh tulips and put them at her crash site, eating some cookie cake and redbull in her honor, making sure to share it with her.

Time passed and it was now my 8th grade promotion. As I walk to get my certificate, I think back to Zosia’s the year prayer, how i laugher at ameila when her voice cracked as she cheered when it was Zosia's turn to walk across, and how she never got to do the same for me. Even though I could still hear my mom and beata cheering for me, it still felt quieter without her.

Over the summer we went to a lake house. It made me think back to the one last year, when Amelia and Jerome were being dumb on the dock and challenged each other to see who could chug a drink quicker, Amelia winning by a landslide.

Even though it's been almost a year already, I still find myself looking back at her news articles, reading over each word as if I hadn't done it a thousand times before. I still go and check her location, even though it was turned off back in February. I still look at her instagram posts and photos taken weeks or days before it happened, each time understanding more and more that you have no control over death. That things change without warning and there is absolutely nothing you can do.

Death is weird. It makes you miss things you never thought you would. Who knew I would miss singing WAP with her and all my sisters while washing dishes after dinner each night. Who knew I would miss watching her and Jerome get extremely competitive over machi koro; they were the only two that actually knew how to play it. I didn’t think I would miss sitting in the corner of her room while Beata and her talked about boy drama, but I do. I miss it like hell.