A few days ago one of my best friends, in fact the incredible woman I refer to as "My Sister From Another Mister" because we are so alike, suffered a horrible loss. Her amazing, sweet, funny, always there with a smile, always happy to see you, kinder than kind father Calvin passed away after a battle with cancer. She posted to Facebook sentences that have echoed in my own thoughts since the death of my beloved oldest sister in 2014 - also to cancer. She wrote "I told him then, as long as I have a "job" to do, I can handle things better." She also wrote, "People say it gets easier... but I just don't see that ever happening."
People who know me, who know my battle with PTSD for which one of the triggers is hospitals and the noises and smells there, have often said of my spending an entire week in my sister's hospital room before we brought her home for hospice that they are amazed I held it together so well through that week. Those same people have said that they are so amazed that I held it together so well for the month that she was home before she died. I was the midnight shift because I am the family night owl. She needed medication at midnight until the final week and I'd go out, get her to eat some apple sauce in which was hidden a tiny pill, and then spend at least an hour if not far more sitting next to her hospital bed both of us barely bathed in the light of a small bedside lamp. Those people were amazed that I was so strong and eventually openly wondered how I managed. The answer is simple and the same answer that my dear friend gave... as long as I had a "job" to do, I could handle it. I could handle the hospital because my "job" was to be there to help feed her. My "job" was to be the easiest family representative to interact with when co-workers and friends came to visit as opposed to one or both of our parents. Everyone who had yet to meet me in person knew of me and somehow that made me the easiest family member to interact with. My "job" was to stay most of the day and often into the late evening to make sure she never felt left alone. When she told me as I prepared to go one night that she was scared, it was my "job" to stay and hold her hand until I was certain she was asleep. Those were my "jobs" for that week at the hospital just as it was my "job" when we brought her home to take charge of the midnight shift. It was my "job" to make sure she got that midnight pill and it was my "job" to stay with her until she fell back to sleep. It was my "job" when friends and coworkers came to visit at the house to again be the family member at the foot of the bed sitting with them so they felt a little more comfortable.
I say that it was my "job" because in a large sense all of those things were jobs, however, more than jobs every single one of those things was my HONOR. She was my oldest sister who'd spent countless hours by my side over the years as I went through one medical hell after another. She stood up for me and protected me so fiercely over the years not just as an individual with disabilities but as HER LITTLE SISTER who happened to have disabilities. I've never seen someone more irate over a place claiming to be disability friendly and accessible only to turn out not to be that friendly or accessible to those with disabilities. I know that my friend also views what she did for her dad throughout his cancer battle was not just her "job" but her HONOR as well.
I also deeply feel and understand what my friend means when she says, "People say it gets easier...but I just don't see that ever happening." People tend to hand out A LOT of platitudes and cliches when they don't know what else to say and that it will get easier is one of the biggest when a death occurs. As I wrote my friend in response to her post, it DOESN'T get easier but it does get better. Time, contrary to popular believe DOES NOT heal all wounds especially not the deepest of them. Time will never heal the wound in my friends heart from losing the man who raised her, loved her, was with her through her darkest moments, and whom she was luckily enough to call her dad just as it will never heal the wound in my heart created by the death of my sister. What time does do, I have learned, is build scar tissue and trust me when I say that it takes a lot of time just as it takes a lot of time for scar tissue to form and hold up after a surgery. Scar tissue is a sign that things have been and are healing but it will never be as strong as what was originally there. I personally don't believe that it gets easier to live with such a huge loss but that it does get better as the scar tissue forms. I'm sure there are those who will say that's a matter of semantics and that for it to get better then it must also get easier but I don't see them as one and the same.
EASIER, by definition means: achieved without great effort; presenting few difficulties.
BETTER, by definition means: partially recovered from; less unwell.
I will ALWAYS miss my sister and feel her loss in my life deeply with each new thing - be it a good thing or a bad thing - that happens in my family's lives just as my Sister From Another Mister will feel the loss of her dad deeply in those same moments. Moving forward and dealing with the good and bad of the future will never "be achieved without great effort" without my sister or in my friend's case, without her father. Moving forward and dealing with the good and bad of the future will, however, be done in a better or "less unwell" manner.
The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight just as they are every night. I don't know if this post makes any sense to anyone besides myself or if it comes off as just a rambling blog post of a young woman who has seen too much pain in her life and can't quite find the right words. Regardless, remember this if you remember nothing else: Time allows for the creation of scar tissue which dampens the pain but it does not ever fully heal because no matter how much time passes, pain will still find a way to seep through the cracks. Accept it. Feel it. Embrace it. It is now a part of who you are.
