My baby sister, my only sister, passed away a couple of weeks ago. She had been sick for many years and it was expected.
I told people I know on Facebook by sharing a picture of she and I seeing each other for the first time in many years. The paragraph started with the words, “my sister and I were not close…..”
Fast forward to several days after her funeral. Facebook has been draining me. I’m so overwhelmed with all of the hatefulness there and what is equivalent to people constantly talking around me. I needed a break. Deactivating and decompressing has helped me to put other thoughts and priorities in order. Lying in bed two nights ago, I realized that I had lied.
My sister and I WERE close. Very close. “Thick as thieves”, as people say, at one point in our young lives. We slept together, ate together, got in trouble together. I tried to feed her M&Ms when I was just a toddler and she was a baby. It almost gave our mother a heart attack! I just wanted to share my candy with my baby sister that I adored.
Unfortunately, our mother and her father divorced at some point, and for reasons I was too young to understand, my mother nor I got to see her again for many, many years.
Since her death was expected, and we had lost that closeness, I thought I wouldn’t be affected much by it. I was so wrong.
I’ve realized that this time I’ve taken from Facebook and in all the things I’m doing for myself in place of it, I need to process my sisters death.
I miss her. I miss those two little girls that loved each other dearly, and got yelled at by our momma because we snuck off the porch, where we were supposed to stay, so we could play in a mud puddle at the end of our house.
I miss the relationship we never got to have as preteens going into our teenage years; secrets, late night talks, sharing clothes.
I miss her not being the Maid of Honor at my wedding because we barely knew each other anymore.
Death is permanent. There is no undoing it. It is final and heartbreaking.
I did not expect to grieve or mourn the sister I “didn’t know that well” until I realized that I knew her just like she was my other half. Because at one point in our lives, she was. 💔