Take me back to
taking for granted that
life would just
go as we planned it
time on our side and—
Take me back to
the hundreds of chances
Time with you
slipped through my hands and
assuming together we’d—
Take me back to
beautiful moments of
you and me
Growing together
starting a long—
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.
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.
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.
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?
Today I had a (thankfully private) meltdown over something that wasn’t worthy of that level of drama, but it reminded me that the person I would have turned to—my sister—is gone.
My sister’s celebration of life is in 11 days.
Our mom has, in part, kept herself occupied by thinking through the minutiae of the casual outdoor event. I know she needs to do this to keep herself sane. I know this stresses out my sister’s partner, who is focused on keeping himself afloat. I find myself playing this weird intermediary role to try to keep the peace, but it tears me up inside. Because for our entire lives, if something sparked outrage or frustration within the family, my sister and I would turn to one another. Originally in person, in conspiratorial conversation later, and then once we got older, via messages.
Today I needed her, and she wasn’t there. Because now she is dead. And I am alone.
I’m not alone-alone. I have friends. Our parents. My sister’s partner and I talk frequently. But I am alone in the way that counted, in the way I needed to not be alone. When I needed the only person in this world who could have understood why I got so frustrated as I helped our mom put together a printed handout for the celebration. When I needed my little sister who would validate my frustration, share a recent story of her own, and make it all okay.
I couldn’t distract myself with the task, either, because the task had me staring at photos of her. Her full legal name. The two dates with the hyphen between, focusing so much on the day she first lived and the day she died, eliding all that came between. A thank you from the family, just the four of us where there should have been five. (Her partner is family until he decides otherwise.)
My sobs were for the fact that no matter how many stories I tell, no one will ever have grown up with me. This magical, unspoken intuition born from a shared childhood, shared home, shared parents was ripped from me, and all I have left is the memory of how wonderful it was to have. I did not recognize how great sisterhood was until I lost it. I will spend the rest of my life confronting situations that stab my heart as I realize they would have been better or easier with her.
She would get it, she would completely understand me and this immense challenge, if only she were here for me to talk to.
Your willingness to continue to speak of those we’ve lost is a gift. Please give it.
Please say her name
Its syllables a confirmation
Of her place in this world
Its cadence a comfort
To my forever broken heart
Please say her name
Your willingness to speak it
Means she is not forgotten
The vibrations of your voice
Carry her legacy one more day
Unmoored Sister 