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Permalink Reply by nadia on October 25, 2011 at 9:16am

so sorry you are here too.. I lost my wonderful sister 5 months ago... my bestest friend my soulmate...still does not feel real.. I get the urge to call her skype her and then it hits me that I cant. I feel I lost part of me my anchor in life the only person I could say anything.. the only person that was always always had time for me ,,, I have a partner , lovely twins and still the gap in my life is so huge ... I am crippled with the longing for one of our moments... Your words speak to my heart... cannot find comfort not even in my loved one... I am having one of these bad nites again... I hope your days/notes are easier... nadia

Permalink Reply by Jennifer Colvin on November 7, 2011 at 11:18am

I'm sorry to hear about your sister, I'm older than you (47), but still too young to have siblings pass away.  I do understand.  I've actually lost 3 sisters and a brother.  My first sister died as a baby.  My other sister had a brain aneursym at age 43 and after 10 days went into cardiac arrest in an MRI machine and was brain dead when they revived her.  We had to turn off the life support and it was a few years before I could even say her name without losing it.  My brother died at age 49, again we had to take him off life support, but he had perfect brain function.  He had been on the heart transplant list and then got MS, so he signed a living will saying he wanted NO life support.  When his heart really started giving out, he went into total organ failure.  They put him on a respirator and he tried to pull it out.  He was on meds to keep his beating fast enough with only 13% output, but that isn't enough to keep your organs alive.  We turned down the IV meds and his heart stopped per his wishes.  My last sister died in January this year at age 49 from kidney failure, diabetes, heart failure and COPD, she was on dialysis and decided to stop and died 5 days later.  My mom also died 9 months before her (last April).

 

I too have constant dreams about them.  Dreams that they are alive and wondering why life is different or that they really didn't die even though they were gone and everyone thought they died or that they are somehow dead, but still there talking to me.  It is very strange how the mind works.  I still think it will be one of them when the phone rings or I think to call them when I have something to share.

 

I think the best advice I can give you is to remember the good times.  Honor her memory in some way, maybe make a scrapbook to show your kids someday?  I scanned photos of my sister's and mom's life and made a slide show with their favorite music for the funeral and then gave DVD copies to their friends.  I also posted them on You Tube so their friends I couldn't locate, could find them someday. They are in chronological order from being kids to the end, so it was kind of the story of their life.   I still have a lot of my family's things, partly because I got rid of a lot and don't know that I want to lose anything else and partly because I have no other family to share these objects with anymore.  They hold good memories.

I'm struggling too, that is why I'm on here.  It seems a lot of people don't understand if they haven't been through it.  They try, they mean well, but I don't really think they can grasp how it feels if they haven't had it happen to them.  I was having a hard time even finding a grief support group because it was usually about losing one person, I've lost them all.  This site is good though because it is specific to who you lost and even has a board for multiple losses.

 

Take care and just do one day at a time, that is what I do.