Processing and remembering - 1 year on
I wasn’t sure to expect from a 1-year anniversary, other than taking offense to the label. Such a celebratory word in other senses is now a description of how far away my sister is from me. There’s no silver lining, only distance and loss. It’s especially exacerbated by the strange restrictions we are all living under. The family in Florida got together and I broke isolation to see my cousin; but our Ireland trip in August to celebrate her birthday is threatened, and I am not sure when it will be safe to fly to Florida again.
All that aside, it still would have been a rough day, a hard week. I have been tamping down my grief to cope with the monotony of isolation, and it all came roaring back. I’m so mad that this happened, that she’s gone, that cancer can take someone so alive and make them so horribly sick. I’m so pissed that she’s not here to make playlists for me, or approve my outfits or gang up on me with Mike when I’m being a brat. I miss the little things and I mourn for the big things. She won’t see Stephen get married and she won’t see Leanna and Cael go to High School, and she won’t meet Fiadh Rebecca - Jacqui’s daughter who was born in Phuket but will probably beat Becks for the number of countries she’s lived in.
This milestone has reminded me, again as ever, how wonderful our friends and family are. In a way that is both overwhelming and welcoming, the messages, images and memorials have poured in from all over the world. I look back at photos of her going away party, her funeral and ashes ceremony, and am so thankful and honored that all of you have stayed by our sides, supported us, and continued to send us buckets of ongoing love. You are all hurting too, yet you think of us first. With all that is cruel and unfair in this world. your friendship is a balm.
In the style of the times, let me share some of the ways our friends and family remembered their loss this week.
Not pictured is the full inboxes of texts and emails that started a week ago and reached a crescendo on May 3. They are just as special, and I wish I had the energy to speak to everyone individually.
Someday we will meet up again and share a long hug. Our glasses will clink happily, and we’ll tell stories of life, vibrancy and hope.
