Away again! Just swamped with beginning of the school year stuff, trying to get my bearings after my sister's death. I am now moving from individual counseling at Hospice of Santa Cruz to a grief support group next month, which I can be in for a year. I feel it will take this long to just come to the acceptance that my sister is gone forever. I am in awe of my family's ability to survive this loss (both my own family of kids and a partner, and my extended family).
The one thing I would like to move out of is the feeling that I haven't got much time on earth simply because my sister died such a fully untimely death, and because her cause of death had something to do with the illness we both have. I have a certain amount of survivor's guilt because I got better and she did not; I feel this was a matter of sheer luck on my part, but it is also because I work hard to keep myself physically strong. It's REALLY hard for me to get out of bed in the morning and walk, or do yoga, or get to one of my exercise classes, but it is crucial for my health (and the alternative sucks).
My younger sister has been reading my book, by the way, and loves it. That makes me feel great--because right now, it feels like I just sort of wrote "that little thing." My grief counselor assured me that this feeling of things being diminished will pass as I get out of the acute phases of loss. I look at Mr. Strega and wonder--and ask him--how he has coped with losing so many loved ones. He really only has his sister and a few cousins alive now, as his parents were a bit older when he was born. He says that it really took time, and that there's no deadline that is reached--the grief will recycle and come back, then go away. And so it goes--but life, as always, keeps going forward--a good thing, I think.
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