If you know me I am 100% fascinated by all things related to death and dying. My therapist has said the absolute fascination with death most likely comes because of my loss of my sister when I was 12.
There is much more to the death of my sister Mary. Her loss. Mary’s death was quite sudden. She woke up. Went downstairs. As she entered the bathroom she fell to the tiled floor and she died alone on the cold floor. That is where my mother discovered her first born child. She was blue because it had been maybe an hour without breathing.
See the one thing I selfishly hogged all the myself was MY LOSS OF MY SISTER. I forgot about how others were hurting from their loss. The younger siblings were truly too young to remember.
As the house began to wake up that morning on February 25, 1972. My Dad was waiting for the ambulance. Mom was beside herself attempting to give Mary mouth to mouth breathing. CPR was not used in 1972. Sadly it was too late. Mary’s heart had swelled up within her chest and could no longer work. The only way she may have survived is if a heart was available and the cardiac OR was all ready with her new heart. Since her condition was not known it is a moot point.
BUT there is one more important part of loosing my sister which I forget. That morning morning there was another person in the kitchen cleaning up a mess. The dog had left over the night. Yes it was my older brother who I don’t get along with. He was there. He lost his sister too. I never really thought about it as his loss I just looked at it as mine because she was my sister. We shared a bedroom. I idolize her. I wanted to be her. I wanted to grow my hair like hers. I wanted to wear clothes. Everything about Mary I wanted to be like! Mary had everything go wanted! Most of all is I wanted to be just like Mary. But I forgot…. my brother, he also lost his sister. He was a year younger than her but 18 months older than me. If anything, he and Mary had grown up as twins. I was as just their bratty younger sister?
What brought me to realize this all important fact was my brother’s wife. She gave me one of the only things remaining belonging to Mary, her jewelry box. But it was what my brothers wife said. In addition to the gift….. “it was the two of you remaining after.” Her words spoken were of someone who understood the what it was like in the immediate aftermath of a sudden death. Honestly it actually felt like she was there in February 1972?
Mary had left us. But I did not realize although I thought I was alone in MY grief.Why did MY SISTER LEAVE ME? But it was a very messed up period of time? My mom was alone and suffering. Dad was still working but I believe he took time off. It was another year before he became totally disabled due to a work accident.
I was 12 years old. Nobody reached out but for 1 teacher. I did not take up her offer to talk over the death. I should have but it was just wrong to speak about Mary. In the aftermath I truly needed attention and care. It should have come from home. My parents were struggling. I was struggling too. What I do not know is was my brother struggling too? I can’t see how he did not?
I guess the home I grew up in failed me? 1972 did not find a therapist. Although my parents attended several weekends at a seminar which taught them to handle their grief. I just know I probably would still be wallowing in my OWN LOSS OF MY SISTER. It was a family who lost a sister. It was my parents who lost their first born daughter. It was my older brother who lost his sister. I lost a sister who shared a bedroom with.
……..and all of the years passed from 1972 have been spent as though Mary was mine alone to lose. She wasn’t. If only I had heard the words spoken sooner? Could it have made me see it differently? Could I have shared in grief the loss and such a devastating aloneness?
This was death and how devastating and lost as a 12 year old child I was that year and many more following. Want to hear a secret? I had 3 children. With each child I studied each after they fell asleep. I stared into the crib to make certain they were breathing. Why?
Why not? In my experience they died. But I wanted to make certain they did not die. Only after a loss as great as it was losing Mary can leave lasting scars as it did. Yes I was under the care of a great trained therapist who helped me understand and recover who I was.
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