But somehow it’s always taken me by surprise–with a building irritability and tension in my mind and muscles that starts weeks before (hence my last blog post) and peaks in a deep outpouring of emotion (that I thought I’d already worked through) on the day of the 17th. But the other three years I’ve tried–tried to “get it all out” before the date so it would be easier when the 17th came tried to escape by being on vacation with friends tried to really focus on it so it wouldn’t take me by surprise.Įven this year I found myself hoping that, since I finally feel “healed,” it might just come and go without my mind, body, or spirit paying much attention. The first year doesn’t count because I knew that was going to be rough and I also knew I needed to just “show up” and “take it” (and I did). I once heard someone say that the anniversary of a loved one’s death is really “just another day.” I’ve wanted it to be just another day for four October 17th’s now. (I write about these experiences in my award-winning memoir, This is How We Grow.) And because of that, it’s taken years for me to process Shannon’s death–not in the sense of how it changed my family or kids forever, but to recognize what I lost that day and what it means to me. And then we had six. So, the anniversary of Shannon’s death is really the anniversary of when life changed forever–when our family’s lives changed forever. Ten days after her death, we took in our nephews forever, and three weeks after that I gave birth to our fourth baby. The first words out of my mouth when my husband, OJ, finally told me she had died were: “Do you realize we just inherited two kids?” See, a big part of the trauma was that my brother-in-law, Rob, (Shannon’s husband), had died just two months prior from melanoma, and they left behind their 6 and 10 year old sons, my nephews. I’d already lost my youngest sister to cancer (at age eight) when I was 18 but, hard as that was, it was nothing compared to this. It was sudden, unexpected, and the biggest trauma of my life. And this picture somehow captures the essence of our relationship–the push and pull that bond sisters so tightly. Only 16 months apart, we spent more time together than I’ve probably spent with anyone in my life. I love this picture of my sister, Shannon, and me. My sister, Shannon, and I at ages 3 and 4.
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