It’s been quietly haunting me for at least a week now, the nagging reminder that we are fast approaching the one-year mark. I’ve been trying to keep my mind at bay. I have an important exam in a week, plus a lot of life admin to take care of before I have time to have a total breakdown.
Except today a friend—someone who was my sister’s close friend long before I ever met her—messaged me. Her message was short, just saying, “Is it just me I just do not want to even want to acknowledge May is coming?”
I pretended not to see this message until I was alone, because I knew it was going to pull me back under and unleash something I’ve been trying to keep under wraps. The message was a stab in the chest but also a comfort, because I had been over here wondering if it was just me. 326 days ago my life as I knew it, as I planned it, as I expected it to be, ended with two missed calls and a 6-minute video chat. I was so fucking thankful to know, as I have been at many points along the way, that I am not alone. That I do not carry the sole torch of my sister’s memory.
I’ve been quite absent for the past few months from this blog and from the online grief communities I frequented both because I’ve been busy and because I was sort of living in a fake moment of peace and separation from my sister’s death, but I think you and I both know, reader, that I am back now and will be for a while longer.
40 days to go.
Unmoored Sister 