On Wednesday, 1 September 2010, a part of me died when my sister of 68 years passed away from a heart attack about 3:00 in the afternoon. This event brought a decade of her pain and suffering to an end while producing a hole in the lives of many people who loved and cared about her.
After a decade of illness and the many trips we made to the hospital I had prepared myself that she was about to die. But, she kept bouncing back in spite of her rheumatoid arthritis and pain from it and other illness. I grew to believe that she would outlive me and her death was seldom on my mind.
We both lost our younger brother Bob on
12 September 2004 who passed at the age of 61.
We both lost our younger brother Bob on
12 September 2004 who passed at the age of 61.
Her latest encounter with the medical world was on 18 August when she had knee surgery followed by time in a rehabilitation hospital. As I have done so many times in previous years, I brought her home on 31 August. She projected a feeling of being upbeat with her attitude; she could be at home in her comfortable chair and have her cat back in her lap.
Even with all of the previous close calls that my sister had, her death 24 hours later was a complete surprise. I could feel a significant part of my historical self slip away. After 68 years as brother and sister with the full range of feelings and behaviors that entails, my life has changed significantly with her departure from my world. Since both of my siblings who were younger than me have passed, I am in that unique and somewhat lonely position of being the last family member alive.
One of the areas of which I am thankful is that my sister and I departed in an atmosphere of positive feelings. In her early days of illness, I played “Big Brother” and tried to nag her to do what I thought was good for her. The results were lots of arguments.
Finally I realized one of my own Hugheyisms: “People will basically do what they want to do with their own lives and they behave to meet their needs, not mine.” When I stopped trying to take over my sister’s life in a belief to have her practice my view of good health, our time together was a great deal more positive. I am glad that I finally began to practice what I have always preached!
Rather than a traditional funeral, my sister and I shared a similar value in that we wanted to have a memorial service with the focus of what we have done with the gift of life that God has given to us. Her two sons, Bryan and Daniel, produced a special memorial service to honor their mother that conveyed the spirit of her as a mother, teacher, and friend to so many in her community. I believe that she would have been very proud of how they conveyed to the many in attendance the essence of who their mother was and the ways she helped others with her gift of life.
My experience has been that there is so much activity during the period around a person’s death. There is never enough time to be for visitation and listen to all of the people who were important to the deceased. I am so thankful that so many people made the effort to make sure that her sons and brother got to hear of how Evelyn made an impact in their lives.
I have been blessed by the phone calls, visits, emails, etc. of loving people who not only wanted to share their love of Evelyn with me and her sons, but wanted to also convey their sincere caring about the three of us and how they could help us manage this surprise loss. Time will be a major healer, just as it always as been, but the caring of people around me will help nurture me in so many ways during the difficult days ahead.
Longevity genes are not present in our family with both of my parents dieing at young ages. My younger brother died at 61 and Evelyn passed at the same age as our mother, 68. Going through this experience reinforces for me to make the most of my ‘bucket list’ and spend as much time as I can interacting with family and friends while living each day to its fullest.
Evelyn and I shared October birthdays. Mine is on the 2nd and hers was on the 3rd. For the first time in 68 years, she will not be present to have us co-celebrate the most important personal holiday of my yearly calendar. For the first time, my joyous celebration of my life will be tempered by her absence.
However, her memories are always a part of me starting back during World War 2 when war rationing forced us to share the same birthday cake; 1//2 on the 2nd and 1/2 on the 3rd.
Yes, a significant person in my life has departed; I shall never be the same. Like all losses I prepare to grieve in the days ahead and know that I shall emerge with the powerful awareness that I was blessed to have Evelyn as my sister.
I make the commitment to myself to choose to recall the positive parts of our relationship, support her sons in every way that I am able and make sure that her only grandchild knows how much she loved him.
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