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"Melody asked
me to do this for her, and I said I
would because I want her to be
remembered well. But this
is very difficult for me. There were
thirteen months
between us; she is in my memories as
far back as they go,
and I don't know how to live in a
world without Melody in
it." With these heartbroken words,
and in a voice hoarse
from weeping, I began my sister's
eulogy. For the next
twenty minutes, shaking with tension
and overwhelming
grief, I tried to explain to those in
attendance how
wonderful, good and worthy of life my
sister was, and give
them a glimpse of the void her death
caused.
By all
understanding of the bond, we were
good
sisters. Until our marriages we slept
together, sharing
our secrets in whispers and giggles
once the lights were
out. We played often, fought
sometimes and stuck together
fiercely in school. We double-dated
in high school, and
she married first. We each had two
sons and two daughters
and poured ourselves into motherhood.
Though our marriages
forced us to live several states
apart, we wrote often, and
burned the phone lines between us with
our calls because
sometimes we just had to hear the
other's voice.
I thought we
knew all there was about being good
sisters. Then she was diagnosed with
cancer. Eleven
months before she died she called and
told me the dreadful
news. The doctors gave her five
years. She was scared,
and I said I was, too, and we cried.
We were not yet
forty: How could we face separation in
just five years? I
still feel angry and cheated that we
didn't get those other
four years.
I determined
to write her nearly every day and
share
every bit of the experience with her.
I was with her often
through the initial treatments, and
there was a blissful
three months in which no cancer could
be found. Then
suddenly the cancer returned with a
vengeance, terrifying
in its rapid growth. Her first
reaction, when the doctor
told her, was to run. She did flee -
straight to me. We
spent a week together - praying,
talking, crying and
laughing. With everything in my soul
fighting against the
reality of her prognosis, I decided to
embrace this horror
with her, feeling every emotion,
encouraging her in every
step. I held her when she cried, and
we mourned for the
dreams we would never fulfill, the
places we would never
see together, the weddings she would
miss and the
grandchildren she would never hold. I
promised her
everything she asked for. We planned
her daughters'
weddings and talked of gifts she
wanted her children to
have. She listed all her personal
belongings, and
entrusted their distribution to me.
She told me her
deepest fears, confessed her shames
and regrets, and shared
her earnest longing for more time with
her kids. During
the day, I calmly listened to her,
respecting her thoughts,
completely awed by her strength and
dignity and faith. At
night I wept bitterly.
I went to her
home for two weeks after her visit, to
help prepare for the harsh chemical
therapy plan about to
be launched against her disease. When
the day came for me
to leave, my emotions were raw, the
emotional intensity of
our time together gripping me
strongly. I was so afraid
she would die during the treatments,
and I wasn't nearly
ready for it.
Taking her
now-thin face in my hands, I
whispered, "I
don't know what to say." Quietly,
gently, she whispered back, "There are
no more words, Jenn. We've already
said them all."
I held her gently, as long as she
could bear the pain
of the embrace, trying to memorize for
all time what she
felt like. I cried the long drive
home.
Weeks later
the doctors reluctantly told us there
was
nothing more to be done. Other family
members held back
the report from Melody, fearful of
causing her more pain by
taking away all hope.
In simple
words, for the morphine had ravaged
her
senses, I explained it to her. My
eyes were shining with
tears, my throat closing on the
words. Inexplicably, she
said, "No tears." I choked them back,
and we made plans
for her to go home, where she most
wanted to be.
Plaintively, she told me she was
afraid she would be alone
at the final moment. I promised her I
wouldn't let that
happen.
Very early
the next morning, I returned to the
hospital, so we could be alone.
Sitting as close to her as
I could, holding her fragile hand, I
asked her to please
let me cry.
"Why?" she
whispered.
"Because I'm going to miss you so
much. I don't want
you to die."
Laying my
head down on her bed, I wept hot,
anguished
tears, while she stroked my hair and
comforted me in my
sorrow. It was an agonizing moment.
Later, I again found
the strength to walk through it with
her, but that morning
for those minutes, I leaned on her,
and she stood strong
for me.
I had to go
home. My family needed me, and the
inevitable end had no definite date.
Our mother stayed
with Mel the last few weeks but called
me on the last day
and said to hurry, that the hospice
nurse was sure it would
be within hours.
I dropped
everything and made the trip as fast
as I
safely could, praying desperately that
she could hang on
till I got there. Mom told her I was
coming, though she
was doubtful Melody understood.
Walking in the door of her
room, I was weak with relief that I
had made it in time.
For ninety-eight minutes I talked to
my sister, prayed over
her, kissed her, sang to her and read
aloud all her
favorite scriptures. She never spoke,
but I know she heard
me. The nurse was amazed she hung on
for so many hours
with a 107-degree fever, only four
respirations a minute
and almost no blood pressure.
I will always believe she waited for
me.
This is the
part of sisterhood I'm still learning:
going on after a sister is no longer
there. The pain and
loss are worse than I imagined, and
time without her
stretches before me in aching
loneliness.
I'm at peace
in knowing she is with Christ, but as
our
older sister said bitterly to a
well-meaning friend who
tried to comfort her at the funeral,
"Heaven would have
been just as beautiful thirty years
from now."
My memories
are indescribably precious. I have no
regrets; we wasted no time, faced the
dreadful future
together, said all the right words,
smiled and laughed and
cried in complete unison, all the way
up to the last moment
possible. She was a perfect sister.
A few weeks
ago her eighteen-year-old daughter,
Melissa, called me, sobbing with
grief. "Aunt Jenn, I'm
afraid everyone is going to forget how
wonderful Mama was."
Weeping with her, I promised that
wouldn't happen. I won't
let her be forgotten.
By Jennifer
Koscheski
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