Author: Sarah

30-something navigating grief, life, and making meaning of the senseless loss of her little sister. Sibling looking for connection and community among those who understand the unique pain of losing a sibling, especially in young adulthood.

How do three opinions about a celebration of life become one event?

I had a lot of stress leading up to my sister’s celebration of life, but somehow we avoided the worst of it, and the event was nice.

My sister’s celebration of life was 99 days after she died. I selfishly pushed for a date around that timeframe, because it was the next time I could be home. It served other purposes, too. Firstly, none of us were ready or able to do something in those first few weeks. Her only “service” was a very, very small set of invites to her closest friends to say their farewells, but we had no funeral or formal event before her cremation. Additionally, she and her partner have many friends from online gaming communities who live all across the country; this gave people enough forewarning to arrange for travel. (I’m gratified to say half a dozen people did make the long, expensive journeys.)

Slowly over the three months of time, our parents, her partner, and I worked on small pieces of the puzzle. We started from an important place: my sister did not like big, formal, or stuffy events. Her celebration of life should reflect her, and therefore we wanted it to be laid back, simple, and fun. In May, we all agreed to this. In June, we continued to agree on this. In July, this was still the plan, but there were some inklings that it was getting a little out of the narrow lane we had defined. In the August lead-up to the celebration, I spent a lot of emotional energy on trying to bridge the growing chasm between what my sister’s partner wanted and what our mom wanted.

With the benefit of retrospection, I can say with certainty that my sister’s partner wanted to honor the person my sister was at the moment she left this world. He wanted to throw a low-key event that she would have enjoyed attending. Our mom, in contrast, wanted an event that showcased every facet of who my sister had ever been. She wanted a celebration of life and a funeral and a memorial and a museum-like atmosphere all rolled into one. These hugely different intentions are indicative of how mismatched many parts of this grief journey have been among the four of us. If anyone ever asks me for advice on navigating this part of life, I will definitely have recommendations borne from the bumps along our way.

I will admit, I ultimately called in a ringer. My best friend, who cares a lot about making things aesthetically pleasing, has a lot of experience in conflict resolution, and is unabashedly on team Sarah, flew across the country to be there to help. With mom’s permission, I set her up to be an event coordinator of sorts, freeing up the family from having to be in charge of a lot of things. I made sure mom explained her vision to my friend, and I made sure I explained in private the nuances of what would and would not be acceptable. My best friend also knows my sister’s partner, because I brought him into a social fold back in July, so she knew and cared about expending energy to not only meet our mom’s demands but also to execute as much of his desires as possible. Without her there, I would have absolutely burned myself out trying to prevent conflict.

Part of our mom’s vision included bringing box after box after box of what I took to calling artifacts or relics. Objects from throughout my sister’s life. She wanted them out on display for people to look at. My sister’s partner was upset by this, especially stressed that this much stuff would create a physically oppressive atmosphere and chase people away quickly. We both agreed that my sister would have been mortified to see this, too. But the thing I’ve learned about family dynamics is they only get exacerbated when you add grief. There would be no dissuading mom.

Another part of mom’s vision was to have 100 printed, framed photos, representing the 100 days since she died. Mom had told me a few days earlier, and when she asked me if it was crazy, I told her, “We throw these events to contend with difficult milestones because this is how we make meaning and find something approximating peace for ourselves.” I meant it then, and I meant it now. I did not know, however, that mom had not run any of this by my sister’s partner. I also did not know that the photos were sometimes quite large. So we were all surprised when the photos got unloaded, and this was also an upsetting moment for my sister’s partner.

Somehow, my best friend used her myriad skills to help mom edit the number of things and create an event that I am so, so relieved to say was a nearly ideal blend of the expectations everyone had, as divergent as they were. Mom had a moment at the beginning to say some short words before the event evolved into an outdoor hang out. The space we picked was large enough and had enough picnic tables that we were able to create spaces for eating, hanging out, and remembrance. We spread photos throughout the venue, so no one was confronted with too many photos at once. The catered BBQ food was delicious, and people noticed and appreciated the candies and sides we brought or made specifically because they were all emblematic of my sister. Our mom got the peaceful satisfaction of seeing people peruse the history of my sister’s life and learn something new about her through them. I had the chance to gift people the pins I designed as mementos of her essence. My sister’s partner got to see the friends around him in his life that were showing up for him, again and again. Everyone was able to come together and share stories and let a little bit of the pressure of their grief out, though it also brought back up pain that many had worked on pushing aside.

Was it perfect? I don’t even know how to answer that, especially for an event I desperately wished we were not throwing, because I wanted to undo the tragedy that precipitated it. But it was lovely, it was an important moment in this sad timeline, and there was not a dramafest. So I am going to consider it a huge success.

Celebrating life, dividing objects, and spreading ashes

Catching up on many milestones that have passed in the last few weeks.

A lot has happened since I last posted. I haven’t felt like I’ve had time to breathe for a while now, let alone write. If you are in a position to better control your schedule, I don’t recommend cramming so much activity into your life like I had to.

  • On August 18, I moved internationally, back to the United States for now.
  • On August 27, we held my sister’s first celebration of life in the town where she had been living.
  • On August 28, we began the challenging task of sorting through my sister’s worldly possessions and deciding who would keep what, and what we would donate or get rid of.
  • On August 30, we drove to her two favorite places along our state’s coast and spread some of her ashes.
  • On August 31, we donated approximately 80% of her wardrobe to a local charity she would have been happy to see her things go to.
  • On September 4, I moved into a new apartment across the country.
  • On September 5, I began intensive training for my job.

I need and want to reflect on many of these milestones, so in the next few posts, I’ll do just that. But let me say I am in a weird place where I am relaxed but emotionally saturated. Rested but tired. Okay and also barely holding it together.

Spreading her ashes was intensely emotional, in a way I didn’t expect. Every step of the way, if there was a way for their to be interpersonal friction between the four of us⁠—my sister’s partner, my parents, and I⁠—there was. Donating her things felt like a major achievement and a sucker punch to the gut at the same time.

Most importantly, I’ve had to reckon with the fact that the first major life change for me has happened, and my sister wasn’t witness to it. I didn’t get to visit her when I briefly went home. I didn’t get to send her a video of my new apartment. I didn’t get to delight her by telling her I was going to give dating a try again in this new city. I can’t try any longer to convince her to come visit me in the places I am.

I have officially moved forward, and my sister has not, can not, and never will. Time stands still for her story, and I wish mine could, too, if only for a moment.

That simple fact is enough to leave me crying, something I haven’t had time or privacy to do in weeks. Clearly, my heart remains heavy, despite the months that have passed.

Designing a memento of my sister’s life

How I handled the overwhelming prospect of selecting “funeral favors” and honored my desire to hand something tangible to those who come to the celebration of life.

As soon as we decided on celebration of life dates, I could not get it out of my head that I needed to come up with some kind of small token to give people in my sister’s honor. Honestly, I needed somewhere to pour my energy, to channel the excitement I would have put into wedding favors or future birthdays. Surely there wasn’t a search term for this macabre party favor though, right?

Wrong. It’s the internet, so there’s anything you can think of.

I spent weeks scouring the internet for ideas. There’s a lot of things that, frankly, I think are tacky or cumbersome or just not right. I didn’t quite understand my goal at the outset, but looking back now, I see that I wanted a piece of permanence for her. (A feeling, I suspect, that is a cousin of why I am going to get a tattoo in remembrance of her.)

My desired attributes list looked something like:

Not ugly
Not bulky
Not likely to get purged or tossed
Not so vague it wouldn’t be clearly about my sister
Not lame
Not single-use or consumable (though I will also be giving people red wildflower seeds as well, so I didn’t not strictly follow this one)

Ultimately, my idea came not from a list article about funeral favors (what a terrible alliteration) but from thinking about my sister. Since we were kids, she collected die cast lapel pins at air shows and some other vacation sites. I have a fair number, too, but she carried on the family tradition with our parents for the ten years I’ve been away. As soon as the idea of lapel pins struck, I was swept up in it.

How would I capture my sister in a pin?

Well, as it turns out, it would take not one but two to make me feel like I had done an adequate job. In three days’ time, I will be giving these to people attending the celebration of life in the town where she lived. I hope they like them.

One captures her aesthetic, music preferences, favorite color, and just a general vibe. She loved Halloween and metal and concerts and the color red, despite wearing a lot of black and white.

Custom round remembrance lapel pin for a funeral/celebration of life with a rock on skeleton hand that says "Sing the song of my life, put on a beautiful show" with two red hearts.

The other is her actual silhouette from a photo she took at the coast, set against an ocean backdrop at sunset. The colors in the sunset are directly pulled from a sampling of her many coastal sunset photos taken over the years. She absolutely loved the sea.

Custom funeral/celebration of life lapel pin in the shape of a hexagon with a female silhouette in front of the sunset sky and ocean that says "Meet me where the sky touches the sea."

I hope these pins will go on people’s work shirts, hats, or bags as they go about their days.

I hope these pins will attend concerts and county fairs and summer outings.

I hope these pins will adorn bulletin boards or knick knack displays in the intimate privacy of loved ones’ houses.

I hope that these pins will, every now and then, evoke my sister’s memory.

And I hope one day, when these pins remain but the people who owned them do not, someone will find them, wherever they are, and think, “Hey, a cool pin,” as they affix it and carry it onward.

Unknown cause of death

I never thought three months later we wouldn’t have an answer yet. Nor did I think we would be treated like the problem in so many ways.

I think each reason for someone’s loss comes with it a specific set of pains. There are different broad categories of loss, that range from violent death to a slow-moving illness to an accident, and everything in between. I can only speak with any authority on the kind I know: a completely mysterious death.

My sister went to bed on Friday, May 19 with a full weekend of plans, including work, attending a friend’s wedding, a short road trip, an air show, and quality time with her partner.

She never woke up on Saturday, May 20.

From the beginning, it’s been an agonizing experience for the rest of us. The realities at the scene of her death don’t match what the on-scene medical examiner and detective recorded; they did not accurately record the sequence of events, which still frustrates me⁠—what if this sways the final cause of death determination? Additionally, we still don’t have the results of her autopsy three months later. It may be another three before we do. And the few details we do have make me believe we will never get an actual answer.

The authorities treated us like naive family and acted as though we were definitely going to find opioids in her blood, meaning she overdosed. The physical examination yielded a symptom common in, according to the doctor who conducted the autopsy, only drownings or overdoses. She didn’t do drugs⁠—not even over-the-counter painkillers, if she could help it⁠—and her toxicology came back clean. Note to all the detectives and medical examiners out there: we are not all in denial. Some of us are right about our loved ones not being the cause of their untimely deaths, and it is painful as hell when you dismiss us as unreasonable.

Despite knowing the toxicology results, we are still waiting for the report. For the answer. They don’t share preliminary findings from the autopsy without blood and tissue samples. The tissue samples were collected and now sit somewhere, along with our shattered hearts, in bureaucratic purgatory. In less than a week, we will hold a celebration of life for my sister, but hanging over us is the storm cloud of the unknown. Honestly, we will be lucky to know the result by the end of the calendar year. And the result may be an official finding as useful as a shrug emoji.

In the absence of an answer, we all build our silent, mental mythologies about what happened. The narratives some of us construct are, in my opinion, a hindrance to the process of healing. Even more frustrating, the other parts of the bureaucracy don’t give leeway. Her life insurance provider is threatening to deny the claim because we haven’t supplied the final death certificate. We want to, but we don’t have it still. The mental, emotional, and financial wellbeing of her partner relies, in part, on this answer we don’t have. And we’re being treated as the cause of our own ills.

We just want to know. Is that so much to ask?