impact of grief – Unmoored Sister

Where grief ends and other problems begin

I never know anymore whether I should attribute struggles to the grief, or whether they’re normal struggles I would have faced in the alternate universe where my sister was still alive. All I know is I am hurting—a lot—and I feel like it’s starting to suffocate me again. The melancholy filter over everything is back, but I feel guiltier about it now. Like I’m not supposed to be this way again, and so unlike last year when I thought I could freely tell people, I am now trying to hide it away, pretend I’m okay to everyone.

Except I’m not okay. I’ve come home for lunch every day the last week to lay in my bed and sob. I’ve let my inner monologue spiral into a twisted, ugly mantra of how worthless I am, how no one should have to stoop so low as to even hear about my problems because why would it matter to them? About how alone I am and always will be.

Is this the grief? Or am I also have some kind of early midlife crisis now? Or am I just depressed (maybe even the properly diagnosable clinical kind)? Or—and my inner voice favors this one—am I just being weak and melodramatic and causing my own problems?

And the thing that keeps stabbing me in the chest every time is a single, echoing thought: I wish I could talk to my sister about this.

I might be a worse person after my sister’s death

That title may be sensational, but I am less than what I once was, and I can’t pretend it isn’t true.

I’m way worse at responding to text messages and emails, sometimes taking days to reply.

I am flakier than I have ever been in my life.

I am lazier than I used to be.

I’m less hopeful that things will “just work out.”

I am more of a hermit than I was before. Not because socializing is especially draining, but the desire for it ebbs much more than it flows.

I don’t have a bow to tie this up with, that’s it.

I’m sadder more often than ever before.

I guess this is who I am now.

For a moment it’s like she’s there

Sometimes I forget just long enough that I select her username on Instagram or I start typing her nickname in the text “to” field. In those brief moments of suspense, she’s alive again. Sort of.

But then it’s like that feeling when you think you’re on the last step, but there’s another. You fall—just a little—and it disrupts your flow. You twist your ankle, you drop what you’re holding, or you break down without warning because of a stupid cat video.

A father’s grief, a mother’s grief

This post is a snapshot of what grief looks like on our parents. It has been 400 days since we lost my sister. I didn’t set out to commemorate the specific day, but it worked out that way when I sat down to write.

Our father’s grief is quiet, subdued. His phone wallpaper is a rotating set of photos of my sister. He’s found ways to craft symbols of my sister into his hobbies and onto his vehicles. He is characteristically reticent to speak of his emotions, but the cloud of sadness that passes over him at times speaks for itself. I sometimes wonder if he has places he goes to break down, because since the day we said goodbye to her body, I have not seen him cry. I could not tell you with any amount of certainty whether he is “okay.”

Our mother’s grief is grasping and still raw. My parents are nearly drowning in photos and objects both of and from my sister, all of which my mom has been amassing. Hundreds of photos, no matter where you stand in the home. My parents always had a decent number of photos around, but the contrast is striking now. My mom also has only just barely begun to consider the possibility of not holding onto every one of my sister’s worldly possessions, but right now my sister’s childhood bedroom is a shrine to all that she once had.

Both of my parents look older. Far older than 400 days should have worn on them. They have only just begun to figure out what their future and retirement looks like, because my sister’s death absolutely imploded the prior plan. They slowly seem more stable in many ways, but the sadness and sense of meaninglessness still hangs heavy in the air. That said, they’ve started making plans for their future again. Spending time with friends. Slowly stepping back out into the world after a year of mostly being cloistered away. I was allowed to take away two bags of my sister’s things that no one had strong memories or attachments to.

It took only seconds for our old reality to crumble, to burn to the ground. Sometime during these 400 days, a tiny sprout of something resembling a new life also began to grow.

Loneliness

On the one-year anniversary of my sister’s death, exactly four people reached out to me. Two of them are people I have never met in “real life” but connected with on grief spaces online. There was something profoundly lonely about the lack of recognition of the significance of the date. Or, I suppose, about the reminder that the date is of little significance to most of the world. Because that’s the core of it, isn’t it? I want her to loom larger in the minds and hearts of more people than she does.

But how many important dates for people in my life have I forgotten or never even committed to memory? I don’t know any friends’ anniversary dates. I hardly know birthdays anymore⁠—maybe ten percent, if you don’t give me credit for when Facebook reminds me. I have certainly forgotten death dates of friends’ loved ones, too. I simply cannot hold someone else to a standard I can’t meet. It just feels infinitely more personal when it’s a loss that still wracks me with grief.

It took several weeks for me to be able to write this, because I needed space from the acute pain to think. There’s a delicate intertwining of the isolation of no one remembering the day of her passing and the quiet, background noise of my subconscious reminding me that I am alone in a different way, too. I’ve lost the companion I was supposed to have by my side for decades to come.

This grief has also twisted my view of myself and the fact that I am single. I used to feel genuinely okay with the prospect of waiting⁠—perhaps forever⁠—to find someone I would enjoy being with. I now feel some existential dread about the fact that I am alone in this way. (And you know what I bet isn’t attractive to potential partners? That level of desperation.)

And then there’s the loneliness of a career for which I move a lot. I am surrounded by people, but I lack a depth of relationships, a community, and a stable sense of home. These, too, used to be things that excite me, but I now regard them a little warily as I wonder whether I am enough of who I used to be to be able to continue on this trajectory.

Only time will tell.