New, Trying To Heal

[Guest RebeccaJoy]

I just found this site today, and would like to participate for a while. In about 10 days it will be the first anniversary of my oldest sister's death. She was 51 and left behind 7 adult children, 2 young children, a husband and several grandchildren.

She had been sick for many years, but what really hurts is that she shut herself off from all of us. I think about her almost every day and I wish so much that I could turn back the clock and be there to save her from dying. She had been taking sleeping pills and pain killers and all kinds of prescription drugs and we all knew she was killing herself, but nobodycould do anything. She wouldn't listen to us. Like another poster said, I am angry with her for dying. I'm angry with her for giving up. I'm also tired of hurting, so I'm hoping to work through this and maybe make some sense out of a senseless death.

-Rebecca

[Maylissa]

RebeccaJoy,

Wecome...even though we all wish none of us had to be here. Anniversaries and other occasions certainly do bring up some of the worst memories we have and I'm glad you've chosen to do something proactive for yourself with your sister's right around the corner.

You say your sister cloistered herself....much like my oldest brother, who was 58 when he died suddenly, did, too. Although my brother wasn't using drugs, he did have some serious mental problems in some ways and our Mother, who died just 2 months before him, hadn't actually seen him in a few years since he never visited anyone, nor would come out of the basement or garage during the years when she was able to go to his house. I myself lived far from them during this whole time, so didn't see any family, either. I was only fortunate to be able to see both of them a few times in the last 6 months before they were both gone, and was at least emailing with my brother then, too....though not as often as I would have liked.

I, too, wish I could have done something to foster more closeness and healing before they were each taken away from me, but my rational mind tells me, truthfully, that they each made their own choices and likely there was nothing I alone could have done to change much, if anything...short of giving up my OWN life to serve them, which is neither realistic nor healthy overall. But the 'what if's' play in most of our minds when we lose someone to death and we just have to try to quell those voices as best we can.

Nobody could do anything for either my brother or my Mother, either ( Mom was alcoholic, plus very ill with tons of diseases ), so their lives just took the courses they'd layed out for themselves....always a tragedy when that happens...but we're the ones who pay a price alongside them, in our grief. Sometimes I think the only 'sense' deaths like this make is to warn the ones left how NOT to live their own lives....but I'm not really sure about anything much anymore. I usually think that it will likely be YEARS before I see any 'reason' that things play out the way they do, but in the meantime, I'm hurting similarly to you, and getting impatient about it as well.

This year I simply made a toast to my brother, the day after his annniversary ( the 2nd one ), because I'd actually forgotten about it due to other stressful and painful things that were happening in our home. It DID seem like enough, this time around, but I'm also aware that that might very well change again by next year....who knows? I also finally got a favourite picture of my brother blown up, cropped and printed, after his last anniversary and will have to find a nice frame for it now....to add to my collection of loved ones lost. Marty T. has quite a few suggestions for memorializing our loved ones on her Grief Healing site, so maybe you could look at some of those so you have something to do in your sister's honour in a few days.