Being There For It All.

My sister Stephanie died four days before my 23rd birthday. In the days both before and after, I often felt like the glue holding my family together. I was hovering above, watching, as we all broke, cried, screamed. It wasn’t only the pain of losing her, it was the unanswered questions and insecurities of what was next. What is the next step? How do all our interpersonal dynamics shift now that she’s gone? We need milk - do we just drive to the Stop and Shop down the block and pretend everything is normal? The world keeps moving, and I couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t stop for just one moment.

I found myself aimlessly yearning for a life that no longer existed. The life where I was young, where sadness was a foreign relative that rarely came for a visit. The life where my sister didn’t get diagnosed with cancer, where I didn’t move across the country and slowly watch her die. The one where my nephew still had his mom, where my brother in law still had his partner, where my dad still had his daughter, where my siblings and I still had our sister.

I resisted my new life with ferocity. I allowed the harshness of the world to burn and rage through me, refused the softness of who I am. I spent longer than I should have in relationships, saying yes when my body was screaming no. I drowned myself fulfilling expectations. I sat complacent, numb half the time and angry the other. My soul tangled up in dull, dreary shades of grey. I shoved down the inkling certainty that if I allowed myself to feel it all, I would crumble.

Steph’s mom had passed from cancer years prior. I was too young to understand what was happening at the time, too blissfully unaware of how the world operated. In the weeks leading up to Steph dying, she looked at me, her eyes glassed over with tears and acceptance, and said that people wait their entire lives to find out what’s on the other side. That at age 47, and in one of the most vulnerable moments of her life, the thing she was most hungry for was to be reunited with her mom. The thing she was most afraid of was her son growing up without her. And isn’t that the whole point of all of it? To feel the comfort of hugging your mom one more time? To feel the joy of all your child’s firsts? To feel the vulnerability of letting someone hold you? The whole point is to appreciate each and every sensation. The whole point is understanding that the life we want to live is the one in which we can feel all of it and be there for all of it.

We all suffer. It is how we choose to deal with and respond to that suffering which dictates the facets of our lives. It took me oceans of helpless crying, mountains of mind numbing confusion, and earth shattering loneliness to stop resisting. To stop resisting the strength, the gratitude, the confidence and understanding that comes with this new life. And it simply makes me wonder, what growth awaits us all at the end of each and every mountain?

-Gabbi Chernak