It’s been a week (and 30 minutes) since my sister left this world. It’s surreal still…a week ago I was in her bed next to her body wishing she would just take one more breath. It was those moments after death where your mind and your heart just can’t comprehend what has happened. I thought we’d had more days…more days of her measured but labored, slow breathing…more days to whisper in her ear…even if her power and her voice had already left us.
But this time last week, I was speaking to her lifeless form just hoping that there was something left of her- spirit or mind- that may hear me telling her I wasn’t ready and I love her.
However, a week later, everyone is trying to find some equilibrium. Trying to get back to schedule. I can’t yet. I’m watching the Wil Wheaton Project and laughing because it’s the best I can do with me. She would have loved it. We shared a love of all things NERD, so I know she would approve.
I’m still not ready. Her ashes came home today and I’m staring at her urns and I’m still not ready. I’m still waiting for that one more breath from her…her voice to call out in the house…anything that makes this not be real.
It’s not that I’m not dealing. It’s that we mourn as we must and I don’t know that I’ll ever be “ready” for the world in which my sister is dead. I will live in it though and I will do my best in it but to me, I’ll always be wanting one more late night conversation or to be yelled at her one more time to get out of “her kitchen”, because if she was cooking, she wouldn’t share the space.
I wish everyone else still couldn’t sleep. The house is so quiet now that everyone is getting back to life and I’m still staring at pictures.
Let’s be honest though, I’m not back in my life yet. Nashville is far away…I miss my friends, I miss my cats, and I miss my home. Mostly, I miss my sister and that’s unlikely ever to change.
