Collection: In Memory of Her...

How do you go on when you lose someone who was so close to your heart? I often wondered that, that is, until I lost my sister. Now I live it.

 Loss can put a hole in your heart as dark grief sets in. All I have left are the memories that I hold tight to, like the next breath of air. I have pictures. I have the things my sister has given me and my boys over the years. Seeing and holding those things is almost surreal to me.

 How could these things be here, yet she is gone?

 My sister was sick for years, battling a long list of health ailments. A list so long that I often wondered how she went on as long as she did. She was a fighter, like no other. I looked up to her for her strength and her unwillingness to give up. What hurts me the most was the fact, although she had a long list of health ailments, it was ultimately an infection she caught in the hospital that took her. She was only 64. Still so much life to live. Yet through all her pain, she held on the way she did for the ones she loved that loved her back.

 She wanted to be here, no doubt.

 Grieving is a strange thing. There are days I make it through with dry eyes, sharing her story, or looking at pictures of her smiling face. Yet there are other days...moments more or less, that her loss really hits me hard again and again. Perhaps it is a song, or a thought that will bring me back down to tears. It hurts more in my quiet moments, moments when a million thoughts creep in my mind. Like the fact she loved the birds and her flowers. The birds continue to come to her yard and her flowers continue to bloom, yet she's not here to see it. The thought she will never see my boys grow up really hurts, she will never be at their wedding or see their children. The fact she had a dog who is now left behind, awaiting her return. Thoughts can get the best of us at times, can't they?

 One of my sister Tina's favorite things was the hot air balloon. She went up in one years back. It was something that I have always wanted to do, and her and I talked about, yet I  never really made it a priority. After losing her we decided there was no better time to go.

 In memory of her. 

 I put together some pictures from the balloon ride we took. A mile high in the sky, we said silent prayers for her. One of my thoughts...hoping she could in some way, somehow see me and know I was there, in a balloon, just like we once talked of. On the basket of the balloon, an American flag hung on one side, another thing she was proud of, for she loved her country and would often decorate with American flag décor around her home. The hanging flag was the first thing I saw as they pulled out the basket to set up the balloon.

 It was in that moment, I felt she was really there.

 I ask how to go on once someone so close is gone. I've been learning it's through the beauty life brings in nature, like a flower blooming or the leaves of the trees blowing in the breeze. I feel she's there in those things, for they all remind me of her. Because I am so close to nature, it makes me feel still so close to her. It's through the ones we love that are still here. It's through hopes and dreams that still need to find their way and it's though the memories made that will always be held close. Nothing or no one can bring my sister back but nothing or no one can ever take my beautiful memories of her away from me.