When my sister breathed her last, my first instinct was to crawl into bed with her… to keep her warm, to be as close to her spirit passing as I could be. I laid there, my arms around her, and I kissed her forehead and stroked her hair, telling her it was too soon and I loved her. Over the course of the next hour or so, I would get up to allow her friend to take my place and then return to her side until the funeral home arrived to take her away. I could not watch them load her onto the stretcher but I stepped outside as they loaded her into the back of the hearse. I watched them place a blanket over her face and then I watched them drive away. As she got further down the road, as I collapsed between the arms of my husband and “brother,” as I watched them turn the corner and drive out of sight… I had two pop culture references come into my head.
The first was the scene from The Girl in the Fireplace. The Doctor had arrived too late to whisk away Madame de Pompadour in the TARDIS. He and King Louis watched the carriage bearing her coffin to Paris as it departed in the rain. That is how I felt watching my sister go and now… now I feel that she travels through time and space but I must now take the slow path… and I am truly a weary traveler.
“Leaving Versailles for the last time. Only forty three when she died. Too young. Too young. Illness took her in the end. She always did work too hard.” ~King Louis in Doctor Who, The Girl in the Fireplace
The other was the scene at the end of the 2003 version of Children of Dune (Sci Fi [now Sy Fy]). Chani dies in Paul’s arms and he loses his vision, stumbles into the arms of his closest friend, Duncan Idaho, and says, “She is gone. She is gone, Duncan. She is gone.”
Sometimes movies and television shows can capture these feelings of loss we all share. Perhaps I am clinging to something imaginary to help with this surreal feeling that my sister, too, is gone. She will never return and there is no ghola to replace her.
However, the last gift my sister ever gave me was for my birthday. She gave me a TARDIS tea strainer. Perhaps one day, it will truly transcend time and we will be together again. Not for a long time… I must take the slower path.
you’re incredible
and, thank you for this blog posting. you are a gift, and your sister too, clearly, if her life enables you to write this beautiful work for both yourself and her. thank you.