My sister would be 40 today. I know I would be throwing her a 40th birthday bash. I wouldn't know where to stop on her guest list because she was special to just about everyone she met. I'm not sure how she did it, because she wasn't trying hard to be kind and lovely; she just was. Truly. Sometimes I think, "Have I made her bigger than life in my mind just because she is gone?" But I always come back to, "No. She was quite literally one of the most special people I've ever met."
I don't cry very often anymore on this journey of grief. But typing this post has struck something in my soul and unleashed just years and years and years (just too many years) of missing her.
"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love." Washington Irving
Nearly 15 years after saying goodbye, she still impacts my life and I hear what she would have said to me in certain moments--speaking messages of truth and kindness and love.
To this day I don't know how or why she was so kind to me all the time. I could be such a brat. She patiently loved me and pointed out truth again and again (and maybe again) without it ever sounding like a judgement. I cannot remember a single moment when I felt shamed by her. Any difficult thing she said to me came from a place of tenderness and care.
She was gentle and strong. Compassionate and courageous. Wise and teachable. Even as a child she had this maturity and understanding about her that seemed well beyond her years. An old soul, I guess. It was her compassion and teachable spirit that perhaps made her the most endearing to her teachers, friends and family. She was a better pitcher than I was not because she was more skilled but because she wanted and allowed my dad to coach her and she wasn't afraid of failure like I was.
She dearly loved God. To this day her faith and trust and hope and wonder in Jesus helps keep me rooted in this crazy, confusing, wonderful world. She let her light shine--her spirit and her smile were radiant. And all those who knew her say, "amen".
God, I miss her but am so thankful you "received her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light."
My memory is the worst and I get sad thinking about all that I have forgotten from our childhood together. I have to believe that I'll get to replay it all someday. Surely, they'll be time in our forever to reminisce.
Sara, if you were here, I would post all these photos of us and tease you about being so stinking good. But, you're not here. I'll post them anyways and show my kids (you'd really like them) and we'll have carrot cake and toast your beautiful life.
Feeling so sad and so grateful. I'm forever the lucky one for having been given the gift of such a remarkable sister.
“For in grief nothing "stays put." One keeps on emerging from a phase, but it always recurs. Round and round. Everything repeats. Am I going in circles, or dare I hope I am on a spiral?
But if a spiral, am I going up or down it?
How often -- will it be for always? -- how often will the vast emptiness astonish me like a complete novelty and make me say, "I never realized my loss till this moment"? The same leg is cut off time after time.” ― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
