Big Sister

Big Sister

My Big Sister passed away a week ago today. She died on the first anniversary of Gord Downie’s passing at five minutes to one. It was a glowering October afternoon, with sullen clouds twisting perfect autumn colors into a seasonal knot outside of the hospital window.

It’s all a blur. The whole day, the moment life left her, the weeks she spent in hospital while we conferenced with our doctor trying to make sense of what was happening inside of her body and her brain. We didn’t expect this outcome, to lose her. We held on to the hope that we’d finally get some answers and figure out why her body was rebelling against her. Once something started to work, a medication, a treatment, whatever, something else broke down and then she did and before we even had a minute to think, she was gone.

My Big Sister was my first friend. I’m the youngest of six kids and she was next in line, ten years my senior. I learned a lot from her at an early age, first to walk and then in later years to stand on my own two feet and do what I wanted without the worry of what others might think. I wish she had followed her own sound advice. She always worried. And, because she did, she often made mistakes. She protected herself so much that sometimes she missed the good stuff. If only she’d known it was good stuff. But then, she was only human. Aren’t we all.

My Big Sister taught me how to shave my legs. I used to sit in awe of her with her basin and soaps and razors, watching the sharp edge nip the flaxen hairs from her skin, “soft like a baby’s bum” she’d say. As you can imagine, I was nowhere near as graceful as she was the first few times. I had cuts and scrapes to match the ones I’d gotten wiping out on my bicycle. It wasn’t until she taught me how to curl my hair that I’d gotten the hang of it.

My Big Sister was there for me when I was curious about the birds and the bees. She took out a book and read the whole thing to me. I winced and squirmed from looking at the diagrams but she told me with a maternal calm that there was nothing she showed me I’d ever need to be ashamed of, especially when it was time for my period. I got mine when I was in grade 5. It made me so sick I failed the easiest language arts test in the world. I was wearing my favorite pink jeans. I almost passed out. When the school bus let me off at the end of my drive-way I bolted straight into the house, whizzed right by my Mother in search of my Big Sister. She calmed me down and reminded me what I needed to do and where to find the ‘supplies’. This of course was all to Mom’s delight. She never knew quite how to broach the subject of ‘womanhood’ with me.

My Big Sister took me on my first adventure. I grew up surrounded by woods and in Cow Bay. I thought driving just up into Eastern Passage proper for a treat at the store was a big outing but once we moved out of the sticks and into the Passage she took me on the bus all the way to Halifax. It blew my mind. We had a routine: Dairy Queen on the corner of Spring Garden and South Park Street for cheeseburgers, fries and Peanut Buster Parfaits (hold the peanuts – yes, I know, weird), two bookstores, the Black Market, and then to Sam the Record Man on Barrington Street. There we discovered three incredible levels of every genre of music. We fell in love with it all, together. Her early taste leaned toward Bay City Rollers. I thought they were pretty lame compared to my love for the Jackson 5. But, then we discovered Duran Duran; New Romantics with a sound we couldn’t resist, a band with glamorous style and splashy videos and influences that opened up the world to both of us. We quite literally wallpapered our shared room with their posters and pages ripped out of every teen/music magazine you can name. We devoured every tidbit, every clip on TV, every note. We got interested in the fashion world and the art world. My Big Sister was quite enthralled with Warhol as a result of our love for Duran Duran and went on to amass a stunning collection of books and things related to him. Finding Duran Duran was our cultural education. And, it was what cemented our bond even with ten years between us. From there until our adult years, we were thick as thieves. All the trips and concerts and conversations and laughter and collecting – they all shaped me and were some of the happiest days of my young life. I’d give anything to go back and relive one with her.

My Big Sister lost a big part of herself when our Dad died. Despite their often tumultuous relationship, there’s no one on this planet she loved or trusted more. She made us promise, that if something were to happen to her, we had to let her go so she could be with him. We encouraged her in every way we could think of to reconsider. She had always said even before she got sick that she would never want to live in a hospital bed, kept alive by tubes and machines and things. She was an incredibly claustrophobic person but she also said that if she couldn’t live fully and functionally, one hundred percent participating in the world, she’d rather not. It’s a tall order for a woman so young to enact a strict do not resuscitate order. When she landed in hospital back in early September, that very thing kept me awake at night but I convinced myself it’d never come to that.

I lost my Big Sister. Someone or something in the universe out-maneuvered my hope and all the fighting we did for her to try and help her get well. Someone said that God needed her now; he had other work for her to do, important work. I like to believe some version of that is true. I wish I knew. What I do know is that for all of the pain and anguish she endured this past year; especially during her long exasperating stay in a Dartmouth hospital, she slipped away surrounded by love. So much of it that when I think of those who were in the room with me, holding her hand, giving her permission to free herself, it makes me want to curl into a little ball and cry for days. And yet I remember this: it is a privilege to grieve. It is an honour to feel so much heartache, all this hurt because I loved that much. We loved that much.

My Big Sister was there for me at my beginning and I was there for her at her end. I am lucky. I’ll be lost without her, likely for the rest of my life. But there are songs and photographs and memories and people and places and things that will keep her right beside me, inside of me, until some force in the universe sees fit to task me with important work. She’ll save me a seat and show me the ropes. That’s how we roll.

I miss my Big Sister with every fiber of my being. I always will. But, that she was my Big Sister and we shared so much is a gift. It’ll never stop giving.

In propinquity,

Nic

PS – It goes without saying that in the days and weeks and months ahead I’ll be working through this loss in poetry. Once the shock wears off I know the words will come and I welcome them.