My beautiful sister Jane died very unexpectedly in 2016. I am 12 years younger than her. For most of my life, she seemed more like a mother to me than a sister, and I leaned on her as such. For the longest time, I did not realize how much she needed a sister, even if she resisted that need most times.
By “leaned” I mean, in our hour-long daily phone calls, just like a child does with her mother, I expected Jane’s undivided attention to my every thought and feeling. And I’d frequently roll my eyes at her need to talk, because it was fraught with constant interruptions to the story I was trying to tell. She always had a similar experience that we’d go deep woods with, yet we’d never circle back to mine. Worse, she typically spoke at a superficial level—something I don’t do well with.
There were moments when she would let me in, and in those times, I was happy to take on the sister role. Unfortunately, this usually meant she was in deep enough pain to allow me a peek into her inner world.
My sister’s first major heartbreak.
Disappointing my mother by showing up too early in her and my dad’s love affair, given that Jane innocently stepped onto the planet nine months after my parent’s married.
Her second and third heartbreak.
In the late 60s, Jane was set to marry her high school sweetheart, George Ray, but was dumped at the alter two weeks before the ceremony took place. Brokenhearted, she fled Long Island and settled in San Francisco. Before long, she married Harry, a native Californian. Come to find, Harry had a traumatic past and their marriage fell apart a few years later.
To cope with her latest sorrow, she enrolled in San Francisco State College and became the first person in our family to obtain a higher education. Still, her heart remained shattered. Trying to regain her footing, she once again completely changed up her life.
With student loans galore, she sublet her gorgeous rent-controlled apartment overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge and was hired to do grunge work on a freight ship headed to Tonga. She fell in love with the island and planned to make a life for herself there. Soon, she met a man named Tualau. After they’d been dating a year or so, Tualau told her he wanted to visit her family in America.
Fast forward many decades: after my sister died, I went to her home, grabbed her journals and read about this period in her life. I quickly noticed a pattern developing with each successive guy she dated. By the time I was reading about her meeting Tualau, I literally shouted to the ethers, “Jane, no! Don’t do it!” For I could see she was about to step into the same trap with him that she’d stepped into with all the other men that came before him: her giving too much, them too little.
Back to visiting America.
Since Jane’s subletter had just moved out of her apartment, the couple’s first stop was San Francisco to introduce my sister’s new beau to her friends. A few weeks later, they visited my parents in Florida, who’d just relocated to the state from Long Island. Tualau, used to being surrounded by family and community, not to mention a piping hot climate, resonated with all three.
Immersed in Jane’s relatives, they decided to marry, and at Tualau’s request, they relocated to the States. Back to San Francisco they went to find a permanent subletter and to sell off Jane’s belongings. With money in hand, they drove her car across country and moved in with my parents.
Not a good move.
For obvious reasons, my sister did not get along with my family. Where my parent’s loved Tualau, they openly grumbled at Jane for being “too negative,” which she was, but kind of rightly so. I think what they most disliked about her was that she was smart, independent and free spirited—in a time where that trait in women was even more looked down upon than it is today.
Since Jane had great organizational skills, she took a job in the family’s roofing business where she earned a modest salary. Tualau was a carver, and barely brought in a dime. Five years later, my sister had saved up enough money to purchase a home, and for God only knows why, it was located right around the corner from my parent’s house. Five years after that, Tualau emptied their joint bank account and secretly ran off with another woman.
This was the beginning of a more equal relationship with my sister.
Terrifically private, Jane needed her sister. We spent hours on the phone each day, her crying and trying to make sense of it all, me listening, my heart breaking along with hers. Luckily, when I am needed and let in, I usually come through in spades.
Betrayed for the fourth time, my sister never regained her zest for life.
Filled with anger and a higher-than-mighty attitude—which was just a cover-up for self-doubt and lack of worth—she gained a lot of weight, suffered a cascading series of health issues, and stopped participating in life outside of the family she needed, but wasn’t valued by.
The only things Jane had to talk about now were other people’s lives, and usually in a negative way. And she was needy. In conversation, she touched others more often than most people do, given she was alone much of the time. This effectively resulted in her pushing people away instead of drawing them in closer like she was trying to do.
One bright spot occurred.
Jane’s first love, George Ray, phoned her out of the blue.
They spoke deep into the night, rehashing their former relationship for the first time in 50 years. Early the next morning, my sister called and asked me to guess who’d called her. This was unusual because Jane abhorred guessing games, which is something I love doling out, but like her, loathe receiving. I immediately intuited that it was George who’d called, because who else would have her so animated?
This was such a momentous occasion that I can still picture where I was standing when this phone exchange took place. When Jane confirmed that I had guessed correctly, I came to a screeching halt on the Long Beach boardwalk and screamed in delight, for I’d never heard my sister sound so happy, poised or peaceful before, and I was desperate for her to be all three.
George broke her heart a second time.
In what became the final five years of Jane’s life, I turned the tables on our relationship and behaved more like a mother than a sister to her. And not always in a good way. Fearing for her life, I told her what to eat for optimal health. Harped on her for making excuses not to exercise. And scolded her for not getting involved in life.
What a frigging brat I was.
I didn’t realize just how unbecoming my behavior was until after my sister shockingly passed. I suffered in all the usual ways that you’d expect in a sibling’s passing, and an untimely one at that. However, when two years postmortem rolled around, my grief was growing larger instead of abating.
Given that my “mothering” was meant to “save her,” —in the space of a heartbeat, I went from thinking my actions towards my sister had been noble—to awakening one night full of remorse and with a deep longing for her that I knew could never be fulfilled.
Not a good place to be.
Bursting with regret, I sobbed myself back to sleep, and my sister, being the loving sister-mother that she is, presented in the most vivid “dream” that I’ve ever had in my life. I can’t stand when people tell me their dreams, even if I describe mine all the time, so I forgive you if you are rolling your eyes at me right about now.
But this wasn’t a dream. It was a spiritual encounter with my sister.
In this vision, I was alone on a couch in a crowded roomful of people who I didn’t know, when something made me turn around. Behind me, I saw my sister standing in a narrow hallway, looking at me with the most brilliant, sun-filled smile on her face. With profound longing, I shot up from my seat and the two of us met in the middle of the room, the partygoers squeezed in all around us.
My sister had eyes only for me.
Burning a hole into my soul and still smiling that dazzling smile, Jane confidently took my hand and I instantly filled with the deepest love I’ve ever known—even more than the love that I have for my children, which is unfathomable. Love coursed through every cell of my body, and I experienced it as a deep, aching pulse.
I remember thinking to myself, “I usually hate when Jane touches me—why am I afraid she’ll let me go?” Just when I thought she was about to, her hand gently nudged my hand backwards and we started dancing in perfect time to the music.
Only there wasn’t any music playing.
Jane was teaching me to dance!
My sister filled me with such enormous love that I absorbed the message that she’d come to impart—in her mind, I’d done nothing wrong, but even if I had, all was forgiven.
I woke up crying and hugging myself, my sister no longer in my arms.
This was the greatest gift that Jane has ever given me.
Here’s to you! if you’re also too-soon-old, too-late-smart. I miss my sister more than words can tell. Like many people this past decade, my life has been filled with one immense challenge after the other. I’ve gained much wisdom because of it, but what a cost. Sometimes, the loneliness is unbearable.
But just like what I was ham-handedly trying to get my sister to do, I continue picking up the pieces of my life, hoping that one day I’ll understand the why’s of it all and be able to accept what the poet Shelley expressed best:
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
And with that, I’ll leave you with one last reflection.
Through the darkest times, my fighter spirit has never left me. George Ray—the complete loser that he is—reached out shortly after my sister’s passing, looking for absolution. He did not receive it. My sister has given me so many gifts, and this loyalty is mine to her, forever more.
The Photo: Me, Funk and Jane at her wedding to another disgraceful person, Tualau.