18 Years

There are so many things I didn’t know about losing someone you love. I’m sure the knowledge I didn’t know has filled many books that I never read.

But today, I’m focused on one thing that I didn’t know.

I didn’t know that when a loved one dies, a part of your life freezes in time. A part of your life can never go on because the part of your life that had that person in it has stopped. Your life goes on but they do not and thus the part of your life with them is frozen in time forever.

I was 18 years old when my sister died and today marks 18 years since she died. In a few short months I will have lived more days on this earth without her than I did with her.

Last night, as I was mentally preparing for today, I found myself in my basement going through stacks of old pictures from high school. I wasn’t sifting through them sentimentally, but rather looking at myself at that age -- looking into the face of myself at 18 and studying the only sister that my sister, Tracey, knew.

My sister, Tracey, has not been here for 18 years so the only person she knew me to be was the growing up I did between birth and age 18. She watched me grow through childhood, as a kid, in awkward puberty, and in high school.  That was it.  That was all the growing I did in our relationship.  She saw me fall in puppy love with my high school boyfriend, she watched me excel in high school, she watched me blossom with a group of close friends, she watched me share musical talents and play on athletic teams, she watched me gain acceptance to Washington and Lee University but she would never see me leave for my freshman year, she saw me leave for my high school prom, and she saw me leave for my high school graduation.

There were no last pictures taken with my sister. As I was sifting through, I saw pictures of prom, graduation, of the graduation after party that the school put on for the Seniors, and then pictures of the graduation open house my parents threw for me.  My sister was alive for my graduation, although she was too ill to attend... but she died before my graduation open house.

I guess when she was lying in a hospice bed dying in our family room I never thought to snap a selfie with her. People just didn’t often take selfie’s as often back in the day. You had to awkwardly hold a camera out in front of you and your friend, smile, and I hope that you captured your own head and the other person's head in the frame. You wouldn’t know if you did until you finished that roll of film, took it to get developed, and got the prints back.

I’m sure my sister was probably very sensitive about her appearance as she neared the end of her life. I don’t remember anything to that effect, but I’m sure I wouldn’t want a lot of pictures taken if I had been in her shoes.

Sometimes I think it’s so easy to just think about the milestones and experiences she missed in my life -- my college years, my graduate school years, my single years in Colorado, my courtship with my husband, my engagement, my wedding, my marriage, my entrance into motherhood, and her three nieces and two nephews – my five children who she never met.  She also never met my cat or my dog... and there is an above average chance that she would have liked both my dog and my cat better than any of my children.

But the truth is when I look back, it looks like another person that she had as her sister. I was such a different person at age 18 than I have become in the past 18 years.

And yet, in ever picture of myself with my sister, I am frozen at the age of 18 or younger.  I recognize her, but I am not the same.  That is the life before grief.  Losing her was possibly the most influential factor of my young life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, 

“I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me.”

 My sister and I were not especially close.  We did our best given the huge age gap between us – practically different generations. Yet her life, and her death, have significantly shaped me.

I miss you dearly, Trace. I wish it could’ve been different. I look forward to your learning who I am and my learning so much more about you, in heaven.