Things I think about...

Sundays are usually the day where my family and I sit back, still clad in our bed clothes and reflect on our life as well as rest for the coming week. My son, on the other hand is a bit too little to understand the significance of the day. Andrew also has it off and does what he does best...read and fall asleep. He is constantly learning and now understands why our son sleeps 12 hours a day. LOL

At any rate, for me it's a day that I do not have to much to do and devote much of my time to myself. But as relaxing as it seems, it can also be filled with too much thinking, which has taken a lot of energy away from me these days.

My call home to mum was a cheery one aside from Evie's sadness which is still very hard to see. Everyone else seems to be doing better with Bryan getting back to work this week.

Life moves on.

However...this day I sit with a cup of hot cocoa in hand staring out of my dinning room window and remember the last moments of Karen's life and wondered what each and everyone of us thought at that moment. Even Karen. I wonder if there was any consciousness left in her to understand what was going on at the time. Andrew explained that she was too far off in the tunnel of deaths journey that he didn't think so and probably too brain damaged to think of anything on our level. But who really knows where the threshold of our consciousness begins and where it ends? Is it really positioned within the depths of our brain or someplace else? Why does it hurt so much in the middle of our chest when we are heart broken? Andrew can explained till he's blue in the face because apparently there is one, but they are far too many questions that leaves me skeptic to the answers.

Never in a million years would I think that I would be sitting there holding apart of my sister as she took her last breath. Many of us were there to hold her, each of us touching her as we prayed, talking to her knowing we were soothing a unresponsive mind. The talk was mostly for us to ensure that she knew she was loved and never alone.

I still cannot believe it. This lesson in life that will hit us all at some point. For some when we are older like me and other's like Evie so young. She should not have had to endure this kind of pain. Her biggest question...like us all "was there anything we could have done to save her?" No. Just like the day on the highway with Nina...no one could change what happened that day too. Eric still would have sped and they still would have died. There is no one blame anywhere and with this loss I no longer fear the experience of death. I do not fear the loss either. Grief will always come and be like a crinkled piece of paper, never to be smoothed out but to see the folds and lines not as damage or ruin, but as reminders of what it was that day and what it has shown me.

I saw my sister lying there, covered in her favourite blanket, peaceful silence quieted the room after they turned off the bells and alarms. There were nine of us. Myself, Andrew, mum, Bryan, Evie, Liam, Brice, Marcus, and Liam's wife, Caroline present. Andrew had taken Bryan out of the room after the commotion when Karen coded. He couldn't watch as he said and they waited in the hall until after the staff doctor told us she had died. It wasn't a horrid thing. Just a calm that began with a few moments of deep, laboured breath and then she went still and like in the movies settled into the shell that was once her.

She was gone.

I heard a broken sigh escape my nephew, Liam as he kissed his mother whispering "I love you so much, Mum." He repeated the 'so much' part twice and then went out to see his dad. His voice was very quiet but seemed so loud in the stillness of the room. No heartbeats, crying, sobs, just an odd quiet that was interrupted by Liam and then tiny sniffles from Evie. Don't get me wrong, there were many tears.

We were all given time to say our last goodbyes with Evelyn and Mum given the most given by themselves. It was important for my niece to have that. Even Mum, because she wasn't allowed that with Nina. None of us were. Nina was in bad shape and there was no viewing at the funeral and Mum had said she didn't feel that it was real because she never got to hold her daughter before they put her in the ground. I thought to myself, my god this is just too much to handle coming from my mother's mouth about my little sister. Just too much to handle for me to stomach. But now I understand what she meant. Seeing Karen die, being there, apart of her last seconds made it real and with that I can deal with it. I know its weird, but really for me dealing with it face first and front helped me accept that Karen is truly gone and a memory to cherish. I told her I loved and missed her each time before I hung up the phone after we talked. And I can her voice say it back to me, even now.

I really do not understand this "grieving process" that people talk about. What is grieving anyway? Crying, Acceptance, Reflection? I really wish someone would tell me because I really don't know what the hell I feel like. Or what I should be feeling like. Nina was disbelief and recovery. But what is this?