My Little Sister

My Little Sister
(I remember when)
By Elizabeth Ann Reed
March 16, 2015

I remember

When You were little and slept standing up in the pick-up,
We were chasing a cow
Bumping through the pasture and still you slept

I remember

When we played thumb war after we went to bed
With me hanging my hand down from the top bunk.
When we used to fight, but that never changed our friendship.

I remember

When we slept back to back,
When we painted our room bright fuchsia pink
And finding a mouse under our dresser.

I remember

When the bum lamb bit your ear and ate your earring,
When You laughed because Coralee got peed on
And shortly after a lamb peed on you.

I remember

When we were in band together
With marching band trips and concerts
When Mr. Bull always teased you because you got so red.

I remember

When you only wanted to write with gel pens
And when you started wearing make-up
And dating when you weren't supposed to.

I remember

When you could never find cute shoes in your size
but always had cuter clothes than me.

I remember

When we climbed rocks in the mountains
And you wished I wouldn't take so many risks
And spending hours walking and climbing
With Yuka, Brandon and Johnathan.

I remember

When we bought the trampoline together
And would spend hours jumping on it.

I remember

When we used to do tricks and dubbed it "Heater Seater"
You were the first person I dropped off my feet
And the only one who came close to standing on the bottom of my feet
We somehow managed to avoid major injury to us both.

I remember

When you failed a chemistry quiz
Because I came to your class to tell you I was engaged.
When you graduated high school and I got married

I remember

When I was pregnant and you called offended
Because I hadn't told you yet,
But only for a minute before you were so excited.

I remember

When You died
And I couldn't believe you were gone forever
I remember.

I will always
Remember you
Miss you
and be so thankful for you.

I remember

Grief

One thing I have learned and am continually surprised by is that grief comes in unexpected times, unexpected ways and unexpected intensity. It has been over 7 years since my sister Erin died and yet last night I was crying as if it was just last week. To back up a bit I've been thinking about Erin more than usual lately. And then a cousin of mine recently got married. She and my sister had become friends after the cousin moved to Douglas. They were only a year apart in school. It seems so weird to me that my cousin is old enough to be getting married. That is partly because I don't see my cousins very often anymore, maybe once a year. But the bigger part is that my sister was 19 when she died. She will always be 19 to me and consequently my cousin should be younger than that. And not old enough to get married. My sister will never get married, never meet my children, never be there on Christmas morning and the list goes on.

But I know that grief is a process and I don't expect to ever stop missing my sister and so it must be a life long process.

Last night one thing I was remembering is how fun it could be to fight with her. It's not fun to fight with my old sister or brother, but it was fun to fight with Erin. It might be that we were closer in age and shared a room for so long; I'm not sure why. We would get mad but it wouldn't be long before we were laughing and hugging. And fights at night always ended with a game of thumb war me hanging my arm down from the top bunk and her reaching up. Thumb war is more fun in the dark when you can't see or aren't looking.

The other thing I've learned about grief is that you can hold it in (sometimes), but eventually it will all come out anyway (and it might be uglier if you hold it in) so its best to let yourself grieve naturally when your heart says to.