By ELLY VARRENTI
You want to come to the opera with me tomorrow night? Free tics.
What is it?
Magic Flute. Mozart.
Thanks. No. I can’t.
Why? You got a better offer?
No. It’s just that…
What? You hate the soprano? You used to sing with the soprano when you were both young and hungry and had dreams of becoming a star. What?
No. I just can’t listen to opera anymore. I particularly can’t listen to Mozart. He was my sister’s favorite composer and since she died I just can’t listen to Mozart. Not even mashed up versions of him in the supermarket. Not without falling in a heap of dirty gasping sobs or little discrete inaudible ones.
Sorry. I didn’t realize…
Actually it’s not just Mozart and opera, it’s any classical music and anything by the Beatles or with Latin American panpipes. Or anything in Spanish. Or Queen. Not any political songs either. Or …
Okay. I get it. Sorry. Sorry. How long’s it been now since your sister…?
2 years, 6 months and 9 days. But some days it’s like it just happened and I can still feel like I did when Mum told me that day. I dropped the phone. I fell to my knees. It was like what they do in the movies. I ran outside and down the middle of the street with my Ugg boots on and when I reached the bush on the outskirts of town, I cried and screamed at the gums. Why! Why did this happen? She was remarkable. So smart and so beautiful and funny and unusual. Why was her experience of living in the world so unbearable she had to kill herself? Anyway…. And then I just lay down on ground and everything, and I mean everything, just, stopped.
It must be so hard for you and your mum and the little boy. Time. It will take time. It’ll never go away completely, I know. But I’m sure that in time… I mean, it’ll fade. Sorry. What do I know? Talk soon. Take care. Talk soon.
Even friends, close and good friends, don’t know what to say anymore. I have heard that the second year of grief can be worse than the first. Jesus! Really? Why is that? Oh, that’s right! It’s because the reality, the bloody ordinary reality of what has happened and what has been left, finally sinks in. It finally sinks down deep into who you now are and takes up residency in the new post-loss-version of you.
Is it that after 2 years it’s as if every cell in your body has been permanently rearranged? Is it as if your heart has been removed from its cavity and reinstalled at a different angle? Is that why the second year of grief can be worse than the first?
My sister gave me a book – The Atheist’s Guide To Spirituality – and I only just opened it last week. She always reckoned I needed to have more faith. Got as far as the inscription. Just seeing her handwriting was enough.
There are photos of us as kids; she’s the blonde, wiry younger one. I’m the dark, chubby older one. They are on my mantelpiece like a shrine next to the silly silver angel she gave me, and the little wooden cross from Nicaragua. Is it time to take down the shrine?
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It is nearly 3 yrs since my sister, my best friend died from stage 4 cervical cancer. She found out it was terminal 1 week after her initial diagnosis of possible bowel cancer. She was given 10 days to live and survived 20. I lived too far away, was financially struggling and a single parent with 3 kids at home...one also in australia. Besides 4 beautiful kids I had a lovely partner choosing to live in our own homes. I remember having a 8 minite conversation with my sister before she started serious morphine relief. I didnt say enough. I visited to say goodbye the next week. I had 3 days. She was out of it on morphine most of the time..skeletal but very strong and independent. She died 2 weeks later on St Patricks Day. The hardest for me is having my heart ripped in 2 and not having the weekly ph conversations. Drinking wine..laughing..hugging..lots of amazing memories. I have bever grieved with my kids...is that selfish? I have after nearly 3 yrs asked one of her children for some of her ashes...part of closure for me? My sister has 2 grandchildren now and another on the way. Her 3 amazing children didnt cope well but have found a way through it. For me this grief is still raw. I brought a house and cried that this is something else I cannot share with Dianne. I cry often but alone as I feel that maybe I should be moving along faster.. aint gonna happen. Miss you Dianne. So glad you were my sister and best friend. I will never stop missing you.
Ever since I was a kid second grade I would grieve either a person or a pet for so many years that I lost count. About a year ago I lost my childhood friend who I've known for thirty years. My cute pet bunny who we had for eight years passed away last month.
No time is a good time to lose anyone. I just hope everyday that they are ok and not suffering in heaven and will remember me when I get old and my time has come.
I miss them all and I am just tired of crying.