by Magnolia Miller

Created on: June 19, 2008

I wasn't particularly close to my sister. In fact, our lives together had been wrought with strife, misunderstandings, disagreements and downright disgust with one another. At the time of her death we couldn't have been more estranged.

Though I had spoken with her about 3 months prior, I didn't have the emotional energy or stamina to deal with her issues or her complaining. After all, I was a single mother too and had my own load to bear.

Having been afraid of death my entire life, I was certain, that if and when I had to face it, it would swallow me up and envelop me with such a sadness that it would render me completely incapable of living a normal life again.

But, strangely enough, I felt an odd sense of relief when she died. Her suffering, her alcoholism, her misery was finally over. Yet, at the same time, I was hurt beyond words, not for me, but for her 8 year old son whom she had left behind.

Who was going to take care of him now? Who was going to explain to him why his mother was gone and why he would never see her again? Her ex- husband, though having had custody of the child for many years, was not known for his tenderness or kindness, who knew how he would handle the grief of a very small and confused little boy?

Grief is an odd process. It is like a series of bridges that you must cross; the bridge of shock and denial, the bridge of anger and wrath, the bridge of bargaining with God, the bridge of depression and then finally, the bridge of acceptance. How and when you cross those bridges is up to you, but they all must be crossed. Not allowing ourselves the time to properly grieve is like denying yourself the right to breathe again. Everything is held in abeyance until that process is complete.

Yet, for reasons that I still cannot explain, I seemed completely unable to shed a tear for her. All I felt was a numbness and a cold, empty place, with no tears, no sadness - just emptiness.

Perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was overloaded with the care of two children by myself, juggling two part time jobs and trying to finish up my last semester of college. I'm not sure, but whatever it was, I was frozen in time and thought only of what was right before me. I did not have time for grief.

All suicide is tragic and yet her death contained an even more tragic element, if that were possible. She attempted to hang herself in a jail cell while in one of her many drunken stupors. She was discovered by the jailer and taken to the local hospital where she lay

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