For my sister
Posted on April 3, 2008 | Filed Under
My wonderful sister, Reva, has a blog over at http://princessreva.diaryland.com - she wrote a post late last night I’d like to respond to. I wanted to put this into her comments section, but its a little too long and formatting it would have been a pain in the butt. So instead I just put an entry up here. Enjoy.
******
I can’t seem to get past Megan’s death. I know, DUH. And part of me wonders if I’m allowed to grieve this much. I was just a sister-in-law. But I think of my brother… of what he’s going through, and what his son is facing… and I can’t hold back the tears. I don’t have the right to speculate on what happens next or what they need, so I just sit right here in shock.
Reva, your grief is in no way any less relevant just because you werent married to Megan. Megan married into our family, and you were her sister. You have every right to grieve, as I do for having lost someone as incredible as Megan was. You also are entitled to try and help, and in fact, simply helping as best you can is better than what most people do, which is offer a few platitudes that do not serve to comfort, and move on.
There’s the bargaining - she was such an incredible and inventive mom, and I can’t help but want to trade places with her - her son deserves her more than my daughter deserves me. It’s stupid, I know. I have no right to shake my hand at the fates and come up with my own ideas. And it does no good for anyone.
Stop thinking this. Now. My son does not deserve to have Megan here any more than your daughter deserves to have you. Believe me when I tell you, that you are a wonderful mother and are doing exactly what you are meant to do in this life. You have moments where you feel inadequate, but rest assured that when the time comes, your daughter AND YOU will both look back and realize that things happened the way they did for a REASON. You may not be a “supermom”, but you are a super mom. I hope you can appreciate the distinction. Now, you can certainly shake your fist at the fates, but it wont help any. Realize that this this happened for a reason, and I’m starting to get an idea of what that is. Rest assured, Megan and I will see each other again, and that keeping a celestial and eternal perspective helps so much more than you realize.
But I don’t know what next - as much as Quinn and Teaq need to move ahead and find peace, I don’t know if I can come to peace with them needing to do that. I still cry at the injustice of it. Which I know is useless. And how dare I anyway? She was my sister, sure, but that’s nothing compared to my brother losing his wife, his son losing his mom. And whenever I have a quiet moment, my mind turns to the night he returned home fromt he hospital, watching him sobbing, while my oldest brother and father stood crying next to him. What was there, what IS there to say? It’s no secret Quinn and I have our differences in opinions about just about everything, but I love him and I break down in tears when I think of the pain he’s handling. And that as a sister, there’s almost nothing I can do to aleviate any of it.
There are many that die that “deserve” to live, and many that live that deserve to die. Do you think that God doesnt know and keep track of all of this? If life were fair and just, Elvis would be alive and all those tacky impersonators would be dead. That said, crying over this is not useless, and it helps with the grieving process. Next time you’re out here, we’ll have to visit Megan’s grave together. That alone would help a great deal if you want to help me. Be an aunt to Teancum.
It’s obvious to give comfort to them, they need it so much. But what of frustrated sisters that know her needs are nothing compared to theirs? I just don’t know what to do with myself.
Your needs are just as important as mine. Do not short change yourself. Be strong, and enjoy the brief time in mortality that you have. This pain is an illusion, and we will be better for it in the end. Do not pity me, pity those whose lives are not touched by pain, grief and loss. For they shall never truly know what happiness and joy are.
Keep plugging along I guess. I just don’t get it.
You dont have to - you just have to experience it. I love you.
About this Post
Permalink | Trackback |
|
Print This Article |
Wow.
Dude, that’s beautiful.
I’m so proud and jealous of you for the maturity of this post…
Beautiful. Wise. True. Do you, we wonder, embrace these truths within you? We hope so, we do. When people say, (seemingly glibbly, at times) “Death is but a part of life” do you know this, Princess Reva and her Wise Prince Brother? Do you with all of your talents, and all of your tenderness, all of your fears and all of your love, think the universe simply decided to evolve you one day–lightening striking a slimy pond and there you are? Or at least some ancient, ancestral facsimile of you? This life is a mere fraction of a journey which never ends and always brings those whom we love back to us again! Like all wise travelers, we come to learn, to experience, to touch and to taste, to dance and to feel, to smell and to see and to hear and to sing all we can. To recall all we can, for those are the only things we are allowed to take from this place. Is here so beautiful that you would never want to go? So beautiful that you would willfully forbid others to leave you, even if for an instant before you? None of us can do such a thing, no matter how our hearts would long to–the universe simply does not allow it. We are parts of this universe, so we too from a higher place (perhaps much higher!)have given our consents with fuller vision than we now may use, do you each think? Each and all, we believe, came to this planet, at this time, not by some cosmic accident–erratic radiation or timely gyration, or other, but by choice. Your daughter chose you; you chose your parentage; your nephew also, chose his; and so on. The questions are many, but the important ones, only a few: Why? What is there to be gained so precious, having seeds of such joy that we would trimble to grasp such opportunity and make it our own? And then, when we are–young, old, bored, curious– finished with our sojourn to oue own satisfactions, we–all of us–each of us– move on.
Were we mourned someplace else when we were born to here? Just some thoughts. Being human is unique to each of us. Why or how could any one or more of us even begin to measure another’s capacities or needs or desires? Yet we seem to do it all the time! Perhaps this is simply one of the many facets of this experience; wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were unique to this place–that there were no other places in all the universe where such judgementality was made or felt? Not by decree, of course, but by temperance, or tradition, or by choice? May you soon learn to embrace all of the light and the goodness the universe sends to your souls!