Throughout your entire life, you are subtly prepared to lose everyone around you. Your grade school friends drift away, your high school friends go off to different colleges, you lose your grandparents before you even meet them, and you know that eventually, you will inevitably lose your parents. No one consciously thinks about the fact that one day, the people who raised them will pass on. But deep down you know, and as you grow up, you come to terms with it. What life doesn’t prepare you for, though, is the death of a sibling. No one imagines a day without their older half teaching them about classic rock music, choreographing dance routines, or screaming and crying because a spider is in the corner. I sure as hell never did. But now I live it every single day.
I lost my oldest sister Tammy on June 15, 2014: Father’s Day, and the day before her 33rd birthday. She had multiple infections spreading throughout her organs and when they staked claim on her heart, we decided to pull the tubes and let her live out her final days painlessly in peace. Even after spending weeks driving back and forth from school to home to the hospital to school to the hospital to school to home to the hospice, living out of my car and surviving off cafeteria food, I still wasn’t prepared. Around 9 a.m. I packed my usual hospital bag and called my mom as I headed out, and was met with “Get here. Now.” By the time I arrived, she had already taken her final two breaths.
The relationship I had with my sister wasn’t the kind you see in movies. We didn’t braid each other’s hair or talk about boys or play with dolls. We would play dress up in her closet and adorn ourselves in silk scarves and bindis and walk around Westport listening to bands play like it was our own personal Coachella. We would volunteer to do the dishes after dinner and turn it into a dance party. We would take bricks from collapsed buildings and use paint to turn them into art. She took me to concerts and taught me how to drive a stick shift. Every day with Tammy was an adventure.
As I grew up, we grew apart. She was always either very sleepy or very excited. She would nap for hours during our family get-togethers, if she came at all. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I put two and two together and realized she was an opiate addict. When I was a kid, her crazy lust for life seemed like this magical force that I envied. As an adult, I realized it was just the high she was on. But it was no longer a high to have fun or party; it was a high to live. She needed it. She survived on it. My sister had become a slave to a bag full of syringes in the bathroom that I found and pretended to not see.
At times I hated her. She was rude and she snapped at me and most times I dreaded her visits. But as I watched her strain for air in a hospice bed, I realized I hated the drugs, not her. I loved her. I yearned for her to get help. But as much as it hurts to watch an addict destroy themselves, you cannot help them until they ask for it. There is a fine line between wanted to support them and not enabling them, and it’s blurry and easy to cross. I cried by her side for the last few weeks of her life, cursing myself for the things I had said about her in rants and in thoughts. All I could imagine was losing her and looking back on our last words just to find that they were angry. And then one moment, after she finally realized who I was, she told me in broken breaths, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t a good sister. We had a toxic relationship. Not anymore. I love you.”
Losing a sibling is something that no one could ever possibly be prepared for. I’ve known since a young age that I will outlive my parents, but I did not expect to outlive Tammy. Everyone asks how my parents are, or how her children are, or how her husband is doing, but no one asks me if I’m okay. No one thinks that losing a sibling is equal to losing a child. I can’t watch “Pretty Woman” without being reminded of her Julia Roberts-esque smile, or listen to Alt-J without remembering how her eyes lit up every time she bought tickets to see them. A bond was broken the day I lost her, and with that, I lost a part of myself. Her spirit was a light that found its way into everyone’s soul and when her light went out, mine did too.
The grieving process isn’t easy. With the holidays right around the corner, my life has turned to shambles. Every day that the permanence of her absence sinks in is another day that I can’t get out of bed. Losing a sibling means losing gallons on gallons of tears and filling canyons with used tissues. You cry and you can’t sleep and you lose all motivation.
But then you pick yourself back up. And you and your family lean on one another. And you make it through. Holidays and birthdays and Father’s Day will be different, but they will not be filled with pain, they will be filled with memories. Remember when we spent Thanksgiving dinner spitting peas at each other across the table? How about when we got her an exact replica of her lost childhood stuffed animal for Christmas?
You will never be prepared to lose someone, be it a sibling, parent, or friend. Every relationship you have will suffer bumps that cause harsh words and fights that cause harsh feelings. While it’s easy to hold grudges and even easier to shame an addict, I can guarantee that it isn’t worth it. Siblings are your blood. They share a tie with you that you will never have with anyone else. Addicts don’t use or drink to hurt you, they do it to help themselves. Cherish the time you have with your siblings and reach out to the addicts in your life who need a support system. End every fight and start every conversation with “I love you.” Bridges that will destroy you to lose are impossible to burn.