Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Grief Part II

The last time I even looked at my blog I felt terribly guilty for not writing anything for over two and a half years, since my father's death. Tragically, this post covers the same ground. I've lost another part of my whole world, my only sibling. Now I am the only surviving member of my family of origin. Death, a stealth fighter, an invisible thief doing his work in the night, robbed all of those who loved my older sister, Nancy Russell Dearr. In the wee hours of Wednesday, she left without leaving a calling card or a known cause. She was sixty-two; seemingly healthy, prepared to go the distance. Everyone was blindsided.  Since the dawn of time, we gather the shattered remnants of the history of a person gone too soon. Once again, my experience is the shattering of a bond deeply embedded in my soul.  I'm missing my trusty other half; Scout sans Jem, Dean Martin without Jerry Lewis, Hope minus Bing, Fred without Ginger, Groucho absent his Marx brothers. I'm painfully reminded of the unavoidable fact that we are not, any of us, "getting out of here alive."

My sister is dead. We can all say "passed," to put a polite expression on the most brutal, existential question all of us face: the unseen force of Fate's biggest coup. The hard truth is, my sister died in her sleep totally unexpectedly, just days ago. There was no warning to blunt the inevitable. Being without Nancy is akin to, as a woman told me when she lost her mother, "... feeling like my right arm had been severed." Everyone debates whether such tragedies are "the will of God," or simply due to the unfair, random nature of  universal departures from this plane of existence. I'm a believer, but I have a lot of resistance to the former point. If I believed that God, in whatever form God takes, snuffs out millions of lives on a whim, it would belie every precept of why we turn to Him and Her for help. Face it: no one knows what's out there till the jig is up. Proving or disproving a higher power is irrelevant. Those left behind run the gamut of mourning, the famous phases of grief. I needn't list the stages, they are well known.

Nancy was the bossy older sister, the trailblazer, a role model. In recent years, prominent psychologists have concluded that in many ways, one's siblings shape their growth, and are as big, if not a bigger influence on the formation of how siblings' personalities and temperament have a deeper affect on them than their parents do. That was certainly true in my case. Nancy flagrantly broke rules, challenged authority, and guided me, a shy, cautious introvert, through steps I wasn't bold enough to tackle on my own. She teased me mercilessly as a child and teen, part and parcel of virtually every sibling relationship. I remember pseudo fistfights, both of us pummeling each other over arguments.

Most Christmas mornings Nancy woke first, ready to grab the goodies, even though she'd already searched our parents' closets to get sneak previews. I thought the whole purpose of Santa Claus distributing gifts was that it was supposed to be a surprise. I was "the perfect child" while Nancy pushed the envelope, charged ahead undaunted. She was a troublemaker and risk taker, rebelling at every turn. I envied my sister's cavalier yet determined goal of doing anything she chose to do. As rivals, we often clashed and were competitive children. She had embraced the hippie flower power child identity. I clung to Jesus Freakery. By the time we entered our twenties those conflicts evaporated. We became equals, true friends, partners in crime, and came to agree on virtually every subject. We tripped the light fantastic on our Manhattan stomping grounds for four years, partied, went to numerous concerts, loved New York's cinema and most of all, we were B'way babies, sharing a wild passion for the theater. We breathed in every ounce of culture in New York City and felt unstoppable.

Nancy will never see her childrens' weddings, experience the unprecedented bliss of us being grandmothers together in our future. We thought we'd be in those old folks' rocking chairs, talking for hours while cooking up a storm for our (hopefully) big family. Nancy gave me and everyone she met warm welcomes, laughs, put people at ease in minutes. She struck up conversations with strangers, making friends anywhere on the spot. Her talents are too long to list. The dedication to her family of four was unshakable: her devoted hubby Ryan, Taylor, the precocious firstborn son, and her daughter Siobhan, a great dancer and social butterfly. My sister was a force of nature as a PTA supermom, always volunteering, lending her many talents the whole time her kids were in school. Nancy and Ryan's entertainment in their home was legendary; her gourmet cooking creations, the lively atmosphere, the love.

She was my rock, greatest ally, best friend and "therapist". We talked endlessly on the phone, followed each minute of breaking news stories, and  hashed out every conceivable hot topic of the day. Nancy will forever be the only person on earth who shared the same womb as I did. They say twins have a unique bond by virtue of how they both inhabited their mother's uterus simultaneously. The same blood ran through our veins. We had a storehouse of abundant memories and classic rites of passage. In some ways we were opposites. But most of the time we delighted in our side-by-side lives.

Nancy Jean Russell Dearr, 1952 to 2015: a stellar life, a light that can never be extinguished. I'm lost and numb now that a vital piece of my self is gone. Nancy would remind me of Winnie the Pooh's famous quote: 

" If there ever is tomorrow when we're not together...there is something you must always remember. You are  braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart...I'll always be with you." Nancy, you can count on that. I miss you beyond measure and I love you forever.