The profound insult of the loss of a loved one is that the world goes on. The sun rises. Birds sing. Food is delicious. Books are great. But nothing can ever be shared with that person again, and sharing is the real experience of being a sibling. Having a sibling is how you learn to share. My kids sometimes nod knowingly when accepting some moments of rudeness from a friend: oh, she’s an only child. They understand in their hearts that you learn sharing deeply from being with your siblings. You share the good and you share the bad. Happy vacation memories, happy staying at home sick memories, happy dressing up memories, happy family meal memories. You also share memories of unhappy family fights, difficulties, even betrayals, and getting through them together.

Lisa and I only had one big fight ever, about where she would live during her cancer treatment. I got her into a study at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, and I was planning to help her find an apartment in Toronto for a few months. She preferred to stay in the log cabin she and her husband had built on my mom’s 100 wild acres, with no running water and only a wood stove for heat. Her doctor said that being with her animals, in her own home, in a kind of natural isolation was not actually the worst thing for a cancer patient, so I had to go with that. She had a way of being stubborn with a soft smile. It still makes me kind of mad.

I put a lot of miles on my car for a few years, driving a couple of hours to see her during a school day, coming back in time to share the dinner my husband organized. She gave the most cutting book review ever during that time: I am a fucking cancer patient with nothing to do but read, and even I can’t be bothered to take the time to finish this book. She once looked at her picc line and said: even if this is what my life is like, I would take as much as possible.

I lost my sister about 3 years after her diagnosis, when I was in my late forties. I was beginning menopause, and the combination was brutal. I was so sad and distracted and irritable, and I thought my new reality was that I had become a harridan. I felt like a harridan. Luckily, I did come through it all, back to my normal, cheerful self, and my family has always said their experience of me was different from my perception. But there are times when I ask myself if that is the right thing: how can I be cheerful and happy when my little sister has left her life so early? That happened a lot at first. It happens only occasionally now.

My godmother said something that I always pass along when expressing my condolences for a loss: the things that hurt the most at first become your most treasured memories once you get through the five years of grief. I am pretty sure that time estimate is correct, and I know her insight to be true. Responding to this prompt brought me to understand that when I think about Lisa, my attention goes to the memories I have of my sister and to the rich time we spent together when she was sick, more than to grief. Thank goodness.

Now I love finding my sister’s name written on the flyleaf of a book that I finally pick up to read. I loved finding her recipe file while sorting through some papers. I love seeing how much she and I look like my kids in our old photos. I love going to the place that reminds me of my sister’s alter ego: George of the Jungle, with no shirt on and a plastic knife in her hand. I remember calling her my little blister. I remember when we had chicken pox one summer but our parents still took us on a driving vacation. I remember the hours we spent listening to the radio and lying in the sun. I remember when we got fancy dresses for my grandmother’s second wedding. I remember when we had bronchitis for a few weeks and played thousands of games of backgammon. I remember how beautiful she looked when we got her dressed for her senior prom. I remember how kindly she looked after my parents in her house when our father was dying of cancer.

I am glad my kids knew her, and knew her cats and dogs. I am glad they were sad when she died. She loved them, although knowing them confirmed to her that she wasn’t going to have her own. Her circumstances weren’t right for it, and that was OK.

And my kids have each other, like we had each other. They know how to share, how to love, how to express anger and how to forgive. They have come to a new era of friendship as young adults, and they are still allies. We could not be honouring Lisa in a better way.

by Joan Timmings

In the space between sleeping and waking, there was a peace. Where David wasn’t dead. But I couldn’t hold onto it. And I couldn’t ease into knowing. Knowing came crashing in. A massive wave of pain.

Was it a form of denial, this pre-waking peace? If so, I was in good company. The only thing more contagious than the virus that killed my brother was the denial that accompanied his death. There was so much silence. The opposite of an Irish wake. The doctor said the words. My mother collapsed to her knees and there she stayed, muffled by prayer. My father forbade mention of my brother’s name. We didn’t wail or scream or cry together. We retreated to separate, private corners where we mourned the loss of my 23-year-old brother -- alone.

Denial is a useful strategy. You can use it to pipet drops of loss into a life that needs to go on. With denial you can feed the baby while choosing a casket spray. Save crying for the car ride home. Events of the day emerge from a soft fog in hazy fragments. Nobody needs to be fully immersed in the icy cold depths of reality.

There were some transgressions over the years. One of us would lean in, secretly, and say “Do you remember when Dave hit his head in the crawlspace?” Or “Do you remember when he fell down the stairs and landed with his feet sticking way out right there?” But there was no real attention drawn to passing birthdays or death days. My mother always arranged to have his name added to the list of prayers at her church. I intruded on a few occasions, but I couldn’t find David there.

Immediately following his death, I caught glimpses of Dave -- jaywalking downtown, a face among fans at a Jay’s game. But eventually even the universe stopped popping up reminders.

When I look for David now, I find him in snapshots in my mind. Six years old, beaming face bent over his new table-top hockey game, hands in furious motion on the levers. Eleven, body stretched, some object held high, his yellow lab, Goldie, caught in a mid-air leap. Seventeen, face in half-profile, intently focused on the frets of his guitar. Curtis, David’s grown-up childhood friend, feet planted shoulder-width apart, eyes locked straight ahead, down the long aisle of the chapel.

Somewhere in the same mind that, reeling with the pain of his loss, created the half-awake space where David was not dead, a synaptic cluster holds on to these images. Now and then, I pull them out. I focus on the details and try to re-sharpen the edges. I discover images I had nearly forgotten.

Funny. There was a time when I found peace in the space where David was not dead. Now, I find peace in the space where David still lives. And, somehow, they feel entirely different.

March 21 will never just be the first full day of spring, it will always be your birthday. A hard day because you don’t get to age along with us. If you were still here, we wouldn’t have to say how much we miss you, but we do.

Jamie misses talking on the phone about all the trips you both wanted to take.

Christina just wants to talk with you about the mundane things, day to day life.

Roseann feels the same. She also wishes you knew her kids and they knew you, too. They would have talked with you on the phone a thousand times by now.

Lissa wishes she could share the joys and pains of having grown kids with you, the weirdness of being alone in the house after decades of kid chaos.

We all miss the person who was always available to talk, who would always pick up the phone and settle in to talk about nothing, anything, and everything.

Whatever the opposite of an Irish goodbye is, (‘pulling a Carrie’), we miss that, too. An hour on the phone followed by another half hour to say ’bye, talk to you later (it will probably be tomorrow).

We miss being able to walk into your house, always open for a pop-in and chat, for a tea and cookies.

You knew it was people that mattered, not things. You’d say you can have time or money, but not often both, so it was best to make enough money to survive and then save the rest of your time and energy for the people you love.

Your name was apt because you carried everyone. “Carrie-ed” us. And it sucks that all we can do with you now is carry your memory, “Carrie” it, but we will.

I’ll never forget the day Carrie told me she’d been diagnosed with cancer. She had been waiting for test results and when she called, I quickly shoved my feet into shoes and left the house so I could talk freely, cry freely, as she explained what they’d found. Carrie repeated that difficult conversation over and over, calling the whole family individually so we could each hear the news directly from her, a departure from our usual approach, which was to tell one person and let the family gossip train do the work of informing everyone else. Those conversations kicked off nineteen agonizing months of surgery, pain, fear, distress, and sadness for Carrie. For the rest of us, for me, there was fear as well as the deepest yearning—a frantic, desperate hope—for everything to turn out well. When it didn’t, and instead she died, it was like an eerie silence descending after the thunderous explosion of a bomb. All anxiety and panic and hope obliterated in an instant; a heavy nothingness all that was left behind.

Years before then, Carrie and I were on the phone discussing—brace yourself because this was some next level angsty catastrophizing even for us—what would happen if one of the twins died. It took our collective breath away, the very idea that one of our twin sisters should ever have to live without the other, and it was weeks before I could stop agonizing over it happening. But never once in that time or after did I worry about Carrie dying. Like the mountains or the sun or the ocean, she was there before I arrived, and her continued presence was a given. Once, Mom found baby me dangling precariously from Carrie’s three-year-old arms. I’d been crying and she had picked me up to comfort me, so the story goes, and Mom had crept slowly toward her, saying, in that high-pitched sing-song voice we all use for children, oh, look at you, holding your baby sister, to rescue me from toddler Carrie’s embrace. But I never doubted my big sister’s love and protection and I knew with absolute certainty it would last a lifetime. What I never imagined was it would last her lifetime, not mine.

My family structure looks like this: sister-sister—brother—sistersister. Carrie, then me, a six-year gap, then Jamie, another six-year gap, then Christina and Roseann. Though we all have the same parents, we joke we are from two families, one consisting of Carrie and me, the other Christina and Roseann, and Jamie a part of both. It’s fitting because, though we did plenty of things together, there are scads of memories unique to each of those so-called separate families. When Carrie died, I felt like some of my memories died with her. No one else can reminisce with me about the time Carrie organized the neighbourhood kids to put on a production of Grease, our parents the unwitting audience. No one else remembers the raffle she spearheaded, selling tickets for the prize cake door-to-door until one of them was opened by a police officer who told us what we were doing was illegal. And now who is there to marvel with me about a man so law-abiding he’d spoil the innocent fun of a group of kids who only wanted to earn enough money to buy candy from the corner store? My siblings don’t remember our small first house, seven of us crammed inside its 1100 square feet, tiny rooms with multiple beds, a small den turned bedroom-for-two. They don’t recall the backyard ice rink our dad built on the circle left by the stored-for-winter above ground pool. Nor summers at our grandma’s cottage, the weedy waters of Lake Simcoe a ten-minute barefoot walk away, the nearby general store where a bag of potato chips could be had for twenty-five cents. Only I was there when Carrie answered the phone in the middle of one April night and was told we had two new baby sisters. And no one but me hid behind Carrie’s back at two of our uncles’ weddings as she sidled up to the open bars and boldly procured pop after pop after pop for us to guzzle while our parents were otherwise occupied.

There are a thousand—million! billion!—words I could write about what it was like to lose Carrie. She was my partner in crime (well, I was her accomplice, at least), my leader, my bossy big sister, my most enduring and loyal friend. Carrie was two years and three-hundred-and sixty-four days older than me, a level of precision important to me when I was a kid because it meant, in kid logic, that she was only two years older than me for one (glorious) day each year. When our brother, Jamie, was born, I was thrilled to become a big sister like her, even though it meant I became the dreaded—wah wah—middle child, too. Until, that is, our youngest siblings, Christina and Roseann, arrived six years later to push Jamie into that much maligned spot and stake dual claim to being the youngest child(ren). All this to say, I’ve only ever existed in relation to my siblings. There has never been a me without them. And even though I’ve been the youngest, the middle, and the quasi-co-middle because *twins*, I’ve never been anything without Carrie. It’s impossible to know who I would be, who I am, without her. She was the first and I was the second, but when there is no longer a first, where does that leave second?

Being a teacher, returning to work after the summer is always a strange feeling, which can be hard for others to understand. On one hand, you dread going back because you will miss the relative freedom of the summer. On the other, you are refreshed and starting a new school year is an energizing and exciting time where you get to have a fresh start with new classes, with a clean sheet. It is definitely a hope-filled time. I remember returning to work after my sister passed. It had been about 6 weeks, and all of the other teachers were sharing how great their summers were and how they felt relaxed and somewhat ready to get a new school year started. I felt the exact opposite. In getting my stuff ready for my classes, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. The grief and sadness was like a ton of bricks weighing me down. I was avoiding co-workers I had known for years because I didn’t want to talk about my summer or lie to them and say I had a great summer. I think I did a decent enough job faking it, but I was a lost soul that fall.

It all happened so fast. Especially in retrospect. It was Thanksgiving when we found out she was sick. She had major surgery in December, went through chemo and ticked all the boxes to recovery. But when she was supposed to start getting better, she didn’t. There were bucket list trips that some of my family went on with her. I didn’t, and I regret these missed opportunities to this day. I guess you could say that I never lost hope, but I was blind to reality at the same time. In my heart I truly believed modern medicine would help her get better. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. I did all the right things you’re supposed to do afterwards. But I struggled with things I still struggle with.

As I returned to real life and my new normal, I worried about how I would answer when someone asked me how many siblings I have. How could I answer that without all of the feelings coming back? Looking back, it seems so stupid and obvious. I have 4 sisters. I always have. Being the only boy with 4 sisters is part of my being. For example, if someone gets mad because the toilet seat was left up, I proudly announce it couldn’t have been me. I have 4 sisters and I had that knocked out of me as a kid. Kidding aside, that question still makes all the feelings come back. It’s been almost 10 years and they still come back. Every time.

Hole in the Family is a fitting name, because that’s how I feel. At family gatherings, there is always story-telling, moving between conversations, and lots of laughter. But through it all, there is an unspoken sadness in the room. We all feel it. We all know it. But it isn’t often brought up. We all miss our big sister. Immensely. Everyday.

I’m a much more emotional person now. It was like a switch. I find myself belting out songs in the car (by myself of course) and I get choked up. Sibling relationships are a different kind of relationship. You fight when you’re young, you drift apart at times in life, but it is a special bond. You lead somewhat parallel lives. Siblings are supposed to journey alongside you throughout life. I look at my own children and can’t even begin to imagine either of them without the other.

I feel guilty that I am now older than she ever was. I miss our phone conversations. I miss her wisdom and advice. I miss her unique mix of practicality, dreaming, and positive outlook on life. I miss our family gatherings being a little bit bigger. Most of all, I am just sad. I am especially sad for my parents. But Carrie wouldn’t want us to feel guilty. She was, and is, eternally selfless. She always put everyone before herself. Like her phone message used to say at the end, have a great day. Feeling a little bit heavier after writing this, that’s what I will try to do.

Hope. At the first mention of cancer or terminal sickness, hope is what we cling to. We wrap it around ourselves like a shield, convincing our hearts that everything will be okay—that we will be okay again. Hope gives us language for the future: recovery, remission, more time. It allows us to breathe in sterile hospital rooms and to believe that statistics are just numbers that don’t apply to us. We hold tightly to stories with happy endings because we need to believe ours will be one of them.

What we don’t talk about is what happens when hope begins to thin. When test results change. When words like “progression” replace “improvement.” Reality settles in quietly at first, then all at once. Not everything can be reframed. Not everything can be rescued by optimism. And when hope fades, something else takes its place.

Grief arrives long before the actual loss. It seeps in through the cracks, settling into your bones. Loss, sadness—these words should be synonymous with life-altering. Because there is no version of life untouched by them. When someone you love is slipping away, the world keeps spinning in cruel indifference. You still have to answer emails, make dinners, show up to work, and take care of your kids. It doesn’t matter that your heart feels like it has been carved out, leaving a hollow space where laughter and certainty used to live.

For siblings, the grief is uniquely disorienting. You lose not only a person but a shared history—the keeper of childhood memories, people, inside jokes, and the silent understanding of how we formed to be who we are today. You grieve the future too: the holidays that will feel uneven, the milestones they will not witness, the growing older you were supposed to do together. When hope fades and grief takes its place, life does go on—but it goes on differently, forever marked by who is missing.

This was one of the hardest areas that affected me when losing my older sister: the milestones they will not witness. With a fifteen-year age gap between my oldest sister and me, our roles often felt more like caregiver and child than a traditional sister relationship. She taught me how to breathe and count to ten when I was upset, helping me find equilibrium between my feelings and my reality. She shaped my reality and my future, providing steadiness and belonging no matter what was happening in the world or within our family. She offered joy, comfort, and an unvarnished realism that allowed you to explore, make mistakes, and have a shoulder to cry on when reality didn’t quite measure up.

I was lucky that she was alive to meet one of my children. Although he has no memories—he was only one at the time—I got to experience the love that family shows, not only as an extension of itself but as an embodiment of what it means to be truly loved and cared for.

The best analogy I heard from a counsellor is to think of grief as a circle in a box. At first, the circle is so big it takes up almost all the space and touches every side of the box. The grief is all-consuming. As time passes, the circle gets smaller, and so does the grief. It is still there, of course—it never leaves—but the circle is not always touching the sides. You are able to live other parts of your life with happiness.

The circle continues to shrink and move. It pings from side to side, from top to bottom, and every time it touches the edge of the box, a wave of grief hits you as if it just happened yesterday. Then the circle moves again. It becomes smaller and smaller but never disappears. It becomes woven into your new life and part of who you are—a new part of you that you learn to embrace. And at the end of it all - or in the middle - we are truly lucky to love and experience life even when it includes loss.

What is it like losing a sister? Losing a sister at any age is hard.
I had over 30 years of memories with my sister — and she had 15
years of life in our family before I was even born. I grew up hearing
stories about our family from before I existed, stories I can’t
personally remember but that still feel like part of me. Those
memories, both mine and the ones passed down to me, have shaped who I
am today.

I’m the youngest of five. I share that “youngest” title with my twin,
who is exactly 14 minutes older than me. I also have a brother who is
six years older and two older sisters who are 12 and 15 years older.
This has always been my story whenever someone asks about my family or
when I need to share something about myself. I usually tell it with a
smile because, first, it’s all I’ve ever known, and second, I truly
love my family.

Some of my best memories are simply of us being together — family
gatherings, inside jokes, the loudness of it all. Even if I grumbled
about it at times, especially when I was younger and embarrassed for
no real reason, those moments are woven into the fabric of my life.
They’re the memories I carry with me, and they make this loss feel so
much deeper.

My sister Carrie, who passed, was a role model to me. She guided me
through childhood, my tough teenage years, and into my 20s and early
30s. I floundered for a bit during those years, but I eventually found
my footing — or at least my version of it. She never got to see this
version of me, the person I am today. Have I changed? I’m not sure.
Maybe I have. Or maybe this is who she always knew I would become.

What hurts the most is knowing I will never be able to talk it through
with her — about this or anything else. I have so many unanswered
questions, ideas, and memories I want to revisit. I just know she
would have answers, the kind only a big sister can give. For all of
this and so much more, I will always miss her.