"So what did I learn from my brilliant, warrior of a sister . . . ? That we are not alone. That God is at the helm, and family—in every form—surrounds us. Life is about souls and hearts, spirits and minds."
You know, you come to this life as a tiny baby, and everyone coos and cuddles and feeds you wondrous things. Then you get a little older and watch Barney and Arthur, where you learn about sharing and caring and relationships and exploring.
At age five you go to school and cut out construction-paper-everything with little blunt-blade scissors made for little fat fingers, and things look quite lovely for the rest of your life. It’s all about glue sticks, Halloween candy, roller-shoes, and Pixar. No one, as they say, expects the Spanish Inquisition.
And then one day you grow up and your older sister is diagnosed with stage four breast cancer. Your sister. The one who knew answers to every math problem on the planet, crocheted clothes for your dolls, taught you to ride a unicycle, and carefully typed up the family recipes on an ancient typewriter to give you the day before your wedding. She’s not supposed to go anywhere before her time. We all need her too much—us and her children and husband.
But she goes anyway, and we don’t have a say in it. She leaves a giant sister-shaped hole in the world. A painful hole. And you kind of wonder what the point of it all was.