A  Family of Four, Forever

I think often about anniversaries, and the weight that we attribute to them. They are an entirely made-up concept, but then again, what isn’t?  It’s nice to celebrate milestones and mark the passing of time, reminders that good things have happened, are happening, and will continue to happen. But I also think it is just as important to hold a place for the anniversaries of sadder moments, to remind us of who and what we have lost, and how that has helped shape us into who we are.

Sarah, my big sister, would be 36 years old this year. An age that, all at once, is younger than many but older than most. Sarah, of course, did not make it to 36. Nor did she make it to 26, or even 16. I am turning 34 this year – an age that, many a time, I wasn’t sure I would make it to. I like to think that we are an accumulation of all our ages at once: some days, you are 16 again, at sometimes you have the wonder of a 5 year old, and some moments you have to be every bit of your age and experience. We exist as a product of all the building blocks and influences that have led us to this point in our respective lives, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I, personally, would have loved to have not gone through what our family went through back in 2002, when I was 10 years old. I would have loved to continue life as a family of four, in a child’s world untouched by cancer, Sarah and I both graduating high school, then college, endlessly picking on each other but ultimately knowing how much we loved each other. I would have loved to go without the string of losses and deaths that started with Sarah and continued through family members and friends. But life, as we all know, had other plans.

Yet at the same time, I am only who I am because of those losses, because of that pain. It can always be worse, and we can always strive for better. Get better, do better, treat others better. To lead with kindness and compassion and welcome everyone with love is a noble goal, one that I know I sometimes fall short of, as anyone does, but that I do not and will not stop striving for. It’s what Sarah did, and what I like to think she would have continued to do had she been given the time.

So, throughout March, and especially on Sarah’s birthday on the 31^st, try to lead a little more with kindness, and with the understanding that just because you may not be at your best on a given day, it doesn’t mean it was a wash. Maybe in that moment you were just a child again, and you should treat your inner child with the love and nurturing that you deserved as a child and still deserve at wherever you are in life.