This past week was the 30th anniversary of my sister’s death.  I still can’t believe it when I say it, or as I write it.  Part of the shock is the fact that there are still days when it feels so raw, as if it just happened.  Other days I struggle to recall something about her I thought I’d never forget.  And when I envision her, she’s still 33, while I’m now near 60.  Grief is a complex experience, but one we all come to share at some point in our lives.  No two losses are quite the same, but the vulnerability and depth of the emotions offer a familiar connection when one mourner encounters another.  So in the spirit of connecting with others who are hurting, I’ve been reflecting  on a few of the things I’ve learned that help.  Thank you for letting me share my process with you. 

Although your loved one is never coming back, and the permanence of this is so hard to accept, grief itself changes over time.  I really noticed that this year in the type of things I think about and the way that I feel.  In my earlier grief, I literally missed her presence.  Every gathering or encounter felt so horribly incomplete. I would think of things to tell her and then recall that she wasn’t just a phone call away.  While her absence is still a presence, my family is now more defined by the future than the past, my children and nephews, and soon their partners and maybe children.  The pain of missing her has now shifted into the pain of what never would be; she never got to marry, never had children, would she still make funny sounds to illustrate her stories and would she have been a good aunt to my daughters?  My pain is now in the loss of all the possibilities of what could have been for her that we never got the chance to experience together. I’m left with so many questions of how she would feel about something or what she would say, what would she be doing, and what she would think about me and what I’m doing (although I know for sure she’d be ok with me spoiling my kitties).

Grief changes you.  Once you cross the barrier of having profound loss, you’re never the same.  You acquire a depth of awareness that no other experience can reveal.  While it was nice to be ignorant, there is value in the journey of grieving.  Grief has a way of clarifying what’s important.  You realize that what you miss about your dear one is not the cleanliness of their house, but the way they made you feel at home.  Or that weighing 10 pounds less didn’t really matter compared to the weight of the love they shared with you and the laughter that lifted you up when they comforted you.  Loss makes us all too aware of how precious our time is and the importance of spending it with wisdom and purpose.  Grief has a way of humbling us in our powerlessness and in how lucky we are for each day that goes as expected.  

Grief makes us more compassionate.  When you’ve been knocked to your knees, you appreciate what it takes to get yourself up and how important it is to be lent a helping hand.  When you know how grief steals your rational mind and robs you of motivation, you gain an understanding of what patience really is and what support truly looks like.  You accept people for where they are and let go of the judgment in expectations of how to “move on” or react in the “right way.”  Grief brings a profound understanding of how damn hard it is to love and to let go.  Grief forces you to be engulfed by excruciating pain and survive.  It also  gives you the courage and capacity to sit deeply with others in theirs.  Grief creates community, it equalizes us in our humanity.

Grief leaves a big hole.  No, really.  You can feel it so vividly, I’m amazed it doesn’t show up on an MRI.  I can sense it within me, like a familiar ache, right below my breast bone and above my waist.  While I tune it out sometimes, it’s always there.  In some ways it’s a familiar friend, reminding me I still love my sister and she is not forgotten.

Last March I got a tattoo.  (Thank you Alana for sitting with me and holding my hand.)  I decided to do it when I came across what felt like the perfect one.  It was the Hebrew word עימי which I think looks lovely, but its meaning felt so right.  It translates to “with me.”  It’s on my forearm and to be honest, I’m so pleased and surprised by how much it helps.  Somehow the physical manifestation of my grief is comforting.  It’s so tangible and permanent.  It represents the hole that’s on the inside being visible on the outside.  It’s a powerful symbol to me that I am living with my grief, through good times and bad, ups and downs, everpresent.

Another thing that has really helped is having a bench designated in her honor.  It’s in our local park and it has a plaque sharing her name and bearing witness to her existence.  It comforts me to sit with her and have a good chat.  We picked a nice spot in the sun with a pretty view of the lake.  It gives me a place to go and an activity when I need something to do with my grief.  I leave flowers there on her birthday and gently stroke it when I need a touch.  The bench literally grounds me when my grief is free floating.

One of the most important gifts I received when I sought support is the permission and understanding that there is no right or wrong way to grieve.  There are no rules to follow or steps toward a “cure.”  You also learn that grief is not a disease, it’s a state of being that is normal and healthy.  Often what we experience as abnormal is other people’s discomfort with our grief.  (I can’t tell you the number of parents who have lost children who share similar tales of people seeing them in the grocery store or schoolyard and literally turn the other way.)  I ask for their forgiveness because they just don’t know.  It is us, the grieving, who walk towards one another with the outstretched arms and the broke-open heart. 

I was in my 20’s when my sister died.  I have now lived with her memory longer than I lived with her.  But she still feels very alive to me.  Her death was not the end of our relationship.  And while I think I can always get the last word when I talk with her or share a story about her since her passing, who knows?  The rainbow I saw on her anniversary date sure did feel like a bit of a wink in my direction.