TO MY BIG BROTHER, CHRISTOPHER
July 19th, 2025
Written in the silence of 4 a.m., when pain won’t let me sleep
Chris,
I miss you more than these words can hold.
I wish you were still here—beside me.
They’ve hurt my body again, badly.
Worse than when I shattered my leg after your memorial—
worse than the wheelchair,
the brace that held me stiff for months,
the surgery that came far too late.
Back then, I didn’t know if I’d ever walk again.
Even after they fixed it, no one helped me.
No one came, Chris.
Not a single soul from our family.
Not one hand wanted to reach back for me.
Instead, they told me
I was a living burden.
Something to be managed.
Moved.
Silenced.
Forgotten.
They placed my body in a rest home,
like I was already gone.
I lasted three days.
I broke myself out.
And a friend—someone I had never even met in person—
he drove all the way from Yakima
just to help me heal.
Only then, once he arrived,
did anyone from our family bring food—
and even that was offered begrudgingly.
Not out of love.
Not out of care.
But because someone else had stepped in
and shamed their silence.
Chris… they don’t even know who I am.
Not my heart.
Not my soul.
Not my dreams.
Not even my name.
They tried to place a fictitious name in your obituary for me, Chris.
A lawful document.
One that becomes part of the permanent record.
That was unlawful—
and they knew it.
I had to bring legal proof of my identity
just to stop that lie
from being etched into history
and carved into the archives
as if it were truth.
Then they spread rumors about me,
again.
Damaging what little life I had left in this town.
Trying to erase me.
Trying to punish me.
Even after you were gone.
And you know,
it started long before you passed.
But I do walk again.
That alone is a miracle.
Still… I have nowhere left to call home.
They took it—just like they took you.
The same agencies that admitted fault in your death
are still harming me now.
I’m sorry, Chris.
You took the fall for who I am.
And none of it was your fault.
How could I have ever explained it to you while you lived?
Would you have hated me,
if you had known the whole truth?
I need you now more than ever.
There’s no pain relief.
What they’ve done to me this time…
it’s unbearable.
I cry out when my legs touch anything,
like I’m being whipped across raw skin.
I’m holding sixty-seven pounds of water in my body
from the trauma.
Even a broken leg didn’t hurt like this.
They offer me Tylenol.
Ibuprofen.
That’s all.
No care. No comfort.
I’m trying to heal myself—
alone, again—
in a place that no longer feels safe to live.
I don’t know where I belong.
I’ve been driven out,
worn down,
cast aside.
But I’m clinging now to truth—
real Bible studies,
not empty sermons from polished pulpits.
I’ve found wisdom across the world
from voices in nations and tribes I’ve grown to love.
That’s where I’m learning again
what faith even is.
I wish we had more time.
I’m so sorry I couldn’t save you.
I truly thought if I kept my distance,
you might be safer.
But they found a way to hurt me—
by taking you.
Permanently.
I’m scared to love people now.
I once loved someone deeply,
but stayed hidden for a decade
just to keep them safe.
Loneliness has carved valleys in me.
You were always the only one in our family I admired.
But I don’t think you ever knew.
You built the roads in this state.
Why isn’t there one named after you?
Why just a grave on Grandview?
There is no grand view there for me.
I hate that road.
Someone once planned for me
to die before you,
to be buried near you.
I’m putting my final wishes into writing now—
so they can’t touch my body after death,
not ever again.
How is it that those with everything
can be so poor in soul and spirit?
Why isn’t family sacred here,
the way it is in other cultures?
Why is survival always something
we’re expected to do alone?
I wish I could just sleep by your grave.
I just want to be near you.
I’m still fighting—every day—for my life.
I have nightmares when I sleep,
and no longer even have my Snow White borzoi
to comfort me in the night.
She’s all I have left,
and we’re separated now.
Even my car feels like a burden—
a gas-hungry machine I can’t afford to drive.
But still,
I plan.
I keep going.
I will return to work.
I will stand again.
You’d be proud of me, Chris.
I know you would.
If you could’ve only known the real me—
why I protected you,
even if it was in all the wrong ways.
The truth runs so deep,
I can’t even write it all.
If I did,
I’d likely already be gone.
You and I both loved engines, trucks, cars…
They were our heritage.
Erased from us.
I’ve designed one now.
A real one.
It’s bulletproof.
Multi-wheeled.
Brake lines hidden.
Tires slash-proof.
A command unit for me,
for my Borzoi,
for the trained K-9 I’m planning to get.
Kennels built in.
A/C running even when off.
And on the hood?
A phoenix—
our symbol.
Of rising.
Of return.
Of what they couldn’t destroy.
I will build it in Austin one day.
I love you, Christopher.
I always have.
Always will.
—
samantha syrnich TLC
🔴🖋️💙🕊️
your little sister,
still standing.
still rising.
still here.
———
I found a song.
This is what it sounds like…
When a woman rises from ashes no one saw burning.
When she writes to her brother from the quiet of pain,
and still believes in something sacred.
This song—“Heaven Thunder” by Mina Tindle & Sufjan Stevens—
is not just background music.
It’s the sound of survival
when silence could’ve buried me too.
🎧 Heaven Thunder – Mina Tindle & Sufjan Stevens
[https://youtu.be/cGFnmgLnXsg?si=HL75zgwfvlMXDgcT]
🕊️ To Christopher. To the fire. To the flight.
Art: The Phoenix That Rose With Scars
Words: My truth.
The Phoenix Quill: Words Born of Fire, Inked in Truth 