One more month and I'll be 45 years old. Something that hit me today is that I'm more than double the age of when my sister died. While I think about the good things that have happened in my life, not the least of them being I'm alive, financially OK and in relatively good health, I think about my sister who died way too young and I think about this little boy called Jahi Turner.

Just like any town, San Diego has stories that are under the radar of the group consciousness. They are stories you kind of have to be a local to know about, and even then you have to really be tapped in to remember them. One story that comes to mind is Jahi Turner.

A few years ago he went missing. This was around the time when abducted children fueled the void on cable TV. It was also a time that unless you were white, blond and had money your story would get little attention. Surprisingly not much has changed in that department.

In any case, Jahi Turner went missing from his father a few days before my birthday. The child was never found, the father was a suspect, no a person of interest, in the disappearance but nothing was confirmed. This was at the same time as the Danielle Spencer disappearance and in a sad way highlighted the disproportionate efforts between black and white. While the Spencer case got national attention, lots of volunteers and a solved case with a conviction, the Turner case was a series of botched planning, community egos and too little too late police work. The Spencer case got a few months of coverage on the national news while Turner got a few days.

The bits of information I have about the case now has been culled from old newspaper clippings that followed the sordid past of the family members. His information on missing children's list, if he is even listed, is well out of date. After a year the memorial services stopped. I mentioned the case to some friends, some of whom lived in San Diego at the time of the case, and few if any remembered him. Spencer they do remember.

Like I said, I also remember my sister during this time. I think guilt pays more into this than anything else. It's like that old story many people talk about; they figure if some bad things or wrong things are done in the past, at some point all can be worked out. Just a few days ago I talked with my parents and something that had been a barrier to us for years just suddenly went away. We have been able to grow past whatever differences we had. We were able to express and say things for forgiveness.

Like many siblings, my sister and I fought a lot, but I assumed at some point, all would be forgiven. I figured, just like with my parents, things would work out. That never happened. She died just shy of being 21 and that messed things up for me big time.

For so many years I wanted to make a mark somewhere. I didn't want to end up like my sister. Let me clarify that a bit. When my sister died, a lot of relatives came to the house, expressing their sorrow. They told stories a bout my sister that were, to put it charitably, lies. A lot of them hadn't seen either of us for over 5-10 years, yet they told stories about my sister at 6 they assumed she was the same person at 20. It wasn't just the usual don't speak ill of the dead but what they said just wasn't her. I resented that and I was bound and determined not to be defined by others. It was around that time I started Chaotic Fringe, because I wanted my real voice heard.

I'm still obsessed about being me, just not as pushy about it as I used to be. The drive was important because I would have never gone with my dream to learn film making if I hadn't been pissed off at relatives and what they said about my sister. However, I want to have my sister back. I want to be able to say I care about her, that I love her.

Just like in a Lifetime movie, I can't remember all of it but I know the last words we said to one another weren't good. It wasn't as dramatic as I hate you or I want to see you dead, but we had some fight and both of us were angry at each other, convinced we were in the right. A week later she was in a coma and by the time I got to see her she was already brain dead. I couldn't even whisper goodbye to her with hopes of her hearing me because she was already gone.

This is very hard to write because as I think about all this my eyes are welling up. I think I wall myself off from things because I don't want to get hurt like this. I don't like it. My sister, of course, had nothing to do with this pain, but I've had too many people I've trusted who have done me wrong. That, put in with the painful loss of my sister, doesn't have me wanting to get close to people, because at some point I think they will twist a knife in my back.

So I get these odd conflicting emotions during my birthday, but I find a way to get through it. Turning 45 just makes me feel old, and I'm thinking more about life and consequences, but I'll get through it.