A Year

A year ago today I lost a sister, under some of the most world-shattering circumstances imaginable. Two weeks before then, she had been chatting with me, planning when she was going to visit with her fiance. I was excited- we had fought on and off over the years, as sisters do, and finally we had been getting along so well. And she was going to come visit. I was so damn excited. But then she was gone. I lost my home a month later to catastrophic flooding, and almost all of my possessions with it, and little by little the things my sister left behind have worked their way into my life and home. They cause tears some days, but more than that they are a good reminder. They soothe.

Suicide is a mess. For everyone. I will be a long time trying to get what pieces of life I can to fit back together. I will be a long time working to settle my own issues with depression and anxiety into this new world where people I know can kill themselves at the drop of a hat. Suicide was something that happened to other people- not to me. But since I lost Teresa I have lost an ex-boyfriend and a friend. All within a year. It is a new worldview I am trying to get used to the taste of, and while it is not to my liking it is not going to go away. I am so lucky in my support system- friends, djkc, my remaining sister, parents and extended family. I am lucky in the relationship I have developed with the folks over at To Write Love On Her Arms. TWLOHA sent flowers to my parents in memory of my sister. Unexpected, unasked, and beautiful. They are an amazing organization and I am proud to support them, and I hope I am doing at least half as good as T would have.

To explain the cake. djkc and I have developed a sort of system of 'celebrating' the rough/shitty things in life with cookie cakes. As far as coping mechanisms go for me, not too shabby. And it really does let us laugh like hell at things that need a smile. Have you ever walked into a bakery and tried to order a cookie cake in your sister's memory before? This was the most appropriate thing we could think of to have written on it (the only thing we could think of that wouldn't have horrified the clerk). Lots of frosting and whimsical butterflies. I like to think T would have liked it.

Especially once Cow Cat tried to eat it.