A special welcome to anyone who is new to The Grieving Room. We meet every Monday evening. Whether your loss is recent or many years ago, whether you have lost a person or a pet, or even if the person you are "mourning" is still alive ("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time) you can come to this diary and process your grieving in whatever way works for you. Share whatever you need to share. We can't solve each other's problems, but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
I am the third of six children: 5 girls and a boy. We were raised in a Catholic family and the age difference from one child to the next was about 18 months. My oldest sister, Karen, was 3 years and 1 month older than I. Growing up, my 2 older sisters shared a bedroom while I shared a room with my 2 younger sisters. When Karen went off to college, I got to move into the bedroom with Susan. And my brother, well, he had his own room. Karen and Susan, the older sisters, were close, as were my 2 younger sisters. It's safe for me to say that I was an unhappy child and wasn't close with my siblings. As a matter of fact, they disliked me as much as I thought I disliked them. I don't really have much in the way of happy childhood memories, some of it my fault, some just because of family dynamics. We lived in Tennessee until I was almost done with 4th grade. At that time, we moved to central Indiana where I finished high school. That was 1974. My dad had just been laid off of work but was fortunate in that his former employer in Tennessee offered him his old job. So he packed up my mom and 3 younger siblings and moved back to Tennessee. I stayed in Indiana to attend college. My sister Karen was married and still living in Indiana. At the end of my freshman year of college, I dropped out and went to Tennessee to live with my family. Our relationship was strained at best so at the end of the summer I moved to northwest Indiana and lived with a college pal who had also dropped out. I was 19 and of course, knew everything I needed to know about life. Eventually, Karen and her husband moved to Tennessee to be closer to our family. By the time I was 24, I had a failed marriage and was trying to figure out who I was and what mattered to me. Through all of this, Karen wrote letters to me. In one letter, she told me that no matter where my life took me, I would still be a part of the family and always welcomed with open arms. She told me she loved me and hoped I was happy.
Karen's marriage ended and she purchased a small home with 2 acres of property. From the time she was a little girl, she was horse crazy. Now she had a bit of room to bring a horse into her life. And so she did. When I traveled to Tennessee to see my family, going to her place was always the highlight. She let me ride her horse around the property and we would spend time hanging out and talking. I was getting to know my sister and liked her. I like to think she thought the same of me. Karen remarried and gave birth to a daughter and then a son. Visits to Tennessee were spent with my family but spending time with Karen and her family were the best. I had moved to Wisconsin, remarried and had a daughter. I remember calling Karen with the news of my pregnancy and she was thrilled. Her kids were going to have a cousin! She shared baby clothes she no longer needed and offered lots of good advice. When my daughter was 6 weeks old, she and my parents came for a visit. Up to this point, I had been giving my daughter sponge baths because I didn't know it was OK to put her in the sink and bathe her. Karen got such a laugh out of that and told me something to the effect that a baby's butt needs to be soaked to get it cleaned! She showed me how to bathe my daughter! I relied on her via long-distance phone calls to answer my questions about babies and to just catch up. We talked every Sunday evening unless one or the other of us wasn't available.
Karen's house was small and busting at the seams with the 2 kids, 2 dogs, cats, 2 horses and a Shetland pony. She and her husband bought 17 acres of land and planned to build a house. Her husband built a small barn on the property and they moved the horses and pony to the property. Karen went out every day to care for them and was anxious to get the house built so everyone would be in the same place.
Mid-January, 1990, my father-in-law was diagnosed with leukemia. He was sent home to die. During those remaining days with my him, I promised myself I would call each of my family members and tell them I loved them. We buried my Father-in-law on February 5, 1990. After the funeral, my then-husband, mother-in-law and 4 yr. old daughter and I returned home. The plan was for the 3 of them to continue to Indiana and I was going to return to work. Once home from the funeral, we were exhausted. Everyone was getting ready to turn in for the night and the phone rang. I answered and heard a woman's voice asking to speak to me. She asked me to hold for a moment and then my mother got on the phone. She asked about the funeral, offered her condolences and then determined that I wasn't home alone. The next thing she said was "Karen is dead." Just like that. She might as well have punched me in the stomach.
It's hard to remember the rest of the conversation. What happened? All I was told was there had been some sort of an accident at the farm. No details until we got to Tennessee for the funeral. The day Karen died was like most days for her: go to work at a opthamologist's office; she was an RN. Retrieve her children after work from the home of a close friend who cared for them during the day and head home. That particular evening, her husband fed the 2 kids while Karen went to the farm to care for the horses and pony. When she didn't return home, John packed up the kids and went looking for her. He found her in the barn but it was too late. Karen had tethered one or both of the horses to a heavy, industrial-grade gauge steel shelving and it had ended up falling on top of her. For a long time I ran the scenario through my head, imagining the reason for the shelving to fall, her panic, the horse(s) panic and her last breath. The inability to turn back the clock haunted me. I never got to tell her that I loved her. I don't remember if I ever did tell her.
This year marked 21 years since her death. I've moved forward with my life. The pain of losing her moved to the background but has never disappeared. Now I look in the eyes of her adult daughter and very clearly see my sister. She looks just like Karen. I've heard that time heals all wounds. For me, it has only created a scab over the pain in my heart since her death. Every now and again, that scab is ripped off and the sorrow is just as strong. It eventually subsides, the scab grows back and life goes on. The day we buried Karen, I promised her I would try to be a better person and live my life well to honor her. Time will tell if I've lived up to that promise.