Five years ago

Five years ago yesterday, something happened that I thought wouldn't happen for thirty or forty more years at least. Even then, I thought for sure it would happen to me first.

My younger sister died.

Some people say when you have a tragedy of that magnitude happen that everything blurs together and the trauma causes your brain to lock away details as a mode of self-protection.

I and my brain are not normal.

I remember nearly every detail of that day from the moment my brother called to tell me to the moment I went to bed that night. I remember vividly the way all my breath just disappeared -- not in a rush, but just like it vanished. Poof, gone. I remember the confusion I felt that no one knew what had happened. I mean, a 27-year-old doesn't just die for no reason. I remember the sick feeling I got in my stomach when I had to tell my mother. I remember choking on the phone as I told Lady and being amazed when she and Mouse dropped everything to come stay the night with me. I remember fielding a million phone calls on my house phone and my cell phone -- all with Mouse's and Lady's help, thank the Higher. I remember nearly losing it as I listened to my cousin Jimmy crying over the phone -- those side-hitching sobs of the truly heart-broken. I remember asking M and L to get me the hell out of my apartment at about ten that night. I remember buying a Stacy-appropriate blouse to wear to the funeral. I remember getting home and falling completely apart in M's and L's arms -- nearly ten hours after I first got the news -- with those same side-hitching sobs I'd heard from my cousin. I remember thinking that their holding me was the only thing keeping me together, that if not for them, I would have fallen into a pile of sorrow and anger with absolutely no physical form any more. I remember wanting to burst apart with the sorrow and anger, but they just wouldn't let me. And I remember in the middle of the crying, my sister ringing my fish chimes to tell me she was all right, that I would be all right.

Five years ago, my sister died. I thought I was going to die from all the things left unsaid and the hurt.

Obviously, I didn't die, and I think in the ensuing five years I've learned a lot of lessons from my sister's living and dying. I've accepted that she had accomplished the task she had been put here in this life to do, and I've accepted that no matter how much I want to, I may never know what that task was. I've learned that life is too short to hold back on how you feel -- whether you are holding back hurt, anger, and frustration or peace, happiness, and love. Doesn't mean I don't still hold back on some things, though. I've learned I shouldn't, but I'm still learning how to not. I've learned that my sister and I had come to some kind of understanding about our different personalities. I've learned that despite our differences, we loved each other as much as two sisters can. I've learned to fight for what you really believe in. I've learned to never compromise yourself.

Some of these things I learned directly from an examination of my sister's life. Others I've learned from an examination of myself since her death.

And I'm still learning.