We were two, a dynamic duo, a complete set. Everything about how I fit into the world was shaped around this truth. My understanding of my future was built upon the foundation of my sister’s existence. I don’t think there’s a single life milestone I imagined that did not include her in it. My sister was just as essential a component as the sun in the sky.
But then she quietly exited the frame, never to return. This structural pillar of my reality was just suddenly gone, and I found out the hard way that the engineers hadn’t tested for this scenario. I honestly didn’t know for a long time whether the rest of me would collapse. These days, I don’t worry about a complete cave in. But I feel now like I am walking around an apartment unfamiliar to me in the dark. I keep bumping into obstacles I didn’t know were there and tripping in holes I didn’t realize my sister’s absence left.
I feel sort of boxed in, at times. The spectrum of options has narrowed, because I lost my partner when she died. There’s a pressure, most intensely from our parents, but also from others, about all the things I now “must” do.
Sarah must pick her job assignments and the places she lives to optimize her safety and closeness to home.
Sarah must answer messages from family quickly and consistently, because there’s now only one person to respond.
Sarah must find love, get married, buy a house, be happy, and live out the most perfect life journey possible, so everyone can pour all the emotion and excitement into one life when it was meant to be shared among two.
Sarah must be prepared to not only bear the legacy of the older relatives, especially her parents, but now also her sister. Her sister that was supposed to be right there alongside her.
Sarah must be okay, because everyone worries about Sarah’s parents but sees Sarah as just the support to prop up her heartbroken parents.
Sarah must constantly figure out the right amount of honest to be when talking about her sister, still. Sarah shouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable; she should hold that all herself.
And honestly, sometimes Sarah must sit in front of her laptop writing and crying the kind of ugly cry that makes your whole face stuff up and stay red for half an hour. Because someone else probably knows exactly what Sarah is trying to say, and she wants that person to know they’re not alone.
Unmoored Sister 