On My Sister’s Deathiversary

This Saturday, December 10 is the first anniversary of my sister Melissa’s death.

Choosing how to spend these big dates - my birthday, her birthday, holidays, etc. - has required a lot of experimenting and feeling into what I need. Sometimes I go big and collective, like the Day of Kindness that I planned for her birthday in July. Sometimes I go small and quiet, like a solo hike on my birthday in April. And sometimes I land somewhere in between, like making a decision with my family to buy gifts for a foster teen this Christmas instead of exchanging presents.

There’s never a right or a wrong way to mark these dates, which can be both freeing and overwhelming.(Doing nothing and just getting through the day is also a perfectly valid option.)

After a year of much public and collective grieving - alongside the challenges of trying to tend to my grief while also parenting and running my coaching practice - I’ve decided to spend the weekend alone, a privilege which I’m so grateful for.

I don’t know yet what those two days will look like. I imagine there will be some ritual, some rest, and some journaling. I imagine there will be some creating, as I’ve found that writing, painting, and other forms of expression have been my saving grace this year.

I also might zone out and watch movies and eat chocolate for two days. I’m open to letting this time be whatever it needs to be.

As Melissa’s deathiversary approaches and as I begin reflecting on the last year, these words have come to me, and I thought I’d share them with you here:

You were one I could not live without.

The day that you died, the choice to breathe was not mine --

It was all brain stem and reflex,

All habit and instinct.

A stubborn in and out, in and out --

One of many things that I could not stop.

I no longer ask why,

but I marvel at how

How we surrender the arms that have held us,

How we release hands,

How we remain standing on the edge when the world has cracked open

How we make the impossible choice,

And yet no choice but this --

No choice but to live

    but to love

    but to love

Here we are, doing impossible things.

Take gentle care of yourselves, my friends.