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it has been 2 months today since my sister died. my whole world feels different. very much altered. i feel different inside and i really try not to think about it. right now, thinking about those things leads me down a very slippery slope. i knew that mourning is a very different experience when you lose someone. each person's loss has some significance than the last person's. when my grandmother died (my father's mother) in 1995 that was my first experience with death. it was new and it was painful and it wasn't easy to understand. her death was expected. she had been sick for a while but the impact it had was still so surprising. i lost my last grandparent in june 2010 (a month before my sister) and although i cared very little for this man (my mother's father) that was called my grandfather i still felt a tremendous loss. the last of the older generation in my family was gone. and that left a hole in my life that is difficult to explain. i never liked the man, he was mean and rude and a horrible person but he fathered 10 children... who in turn had 36 grandchildren... who in turn had 43 great grandchildren... who in turn had 11 great great grandchildren... that's a huge legacy to leave behind... anyway, his death was sad to me for different reasons other than losing someone of great importance to me (that may sound harsh, but it is the truth)... he left behind a sense that something more than a life was lost... that all 4 of my grandparents stood as pillars of some sort and those were now no longer standing. my first grandmother's death changed my family forever. she was the glue that kept everyone together, the whip that kept everyone in line and the source of all that made us 'family'.
i'm rambling... ugh. and i know none of this probably any sense. they're just thoughts connected by a very fine thread of consistency.
with syn dying... it's losing something more to me than i ever thought possible. my shared childhood is now just my childhood. she understood what it was like to be in my family. she understood things no one else could possibly understand. she was my 'buffer'. she had to deal with my parents on a daily basis - something i haven't had to do in almost 20 years. she was reporting on the front line of their daily life where i got the highlight reel once a week. she made my life easier in ways i didn't even know. just a look of understanding. a raised eyebrow. a cynical laugh. a childish giggle. she knew. we weren't much as sisters growing up. we honestly fought sometimes with the intent of taking the other to the brink of death (or severe dismemberment). we were night and day when it comes to most of our personality traits. but as we got older (and to be honest, when she got clean and sober) our relationship changed dramatically. seeing each other through clear eyes we saw our similarities and were able to put aside our differences if not even embrace them. we had a rocky, bumpy, scary road for many years but we reached the junction where things turned smooth and we were able to enjoy each other as people... as sisters. and dammit... these short years were not enough for us. i miss her so much... and that doesn't even do it justice. i ache all over because she is gone. my past and my future is blurred... i mourn for the time we will NOT have together. and god... her daughter... my niece. i can't think about the loss because that would send me over the edge right now..............
there is this syn shaped hole in my life. and i know i can't fill it with anything, i just have to figure out how to maneuver around it, move with it...
damnit...