FINDING COMMON GROUND IN GRIEF

Today is one month.  One month since July 18; one month since my sister died; one month of being an only child.  

On the last day of July, I stood up at the front of her church and described our relationship in these words:  "We were polar opposites".  I even made a list in my iPhone of all the differences and they were many.  It's not hard to find my sister and I on very different planets of existence... and now more than ever.  

Here are a few that stick out that I had on my list: 

Jennifer                                Ruby

White Chocolate               Dark Chocolate

Farm dweller                      Small Town resident

Fiction reader                   Non Fiction reader

Mother                            Auntie

Size 6 feet                            Size 11 feet

Hated shopping                Loved shopping

Queen bed                         King Bed

Musician                               Poet/Writer

Dog Grandma                   Cat Mom

Christian                             Agnostic Atheist

It's not hard to find the differences, it's what divided us for fifty five years.  We were never best friends.  I think for the most part of my life, I felt like I was tolerated by her.  She put up with me because we shared the same parents.  But something happened when she became a mother.  She shared her gift with me.   I felt included in her life when her sons came along.  They became the part of her that found space with me.  They were the first experience of common ground with us.  Those boys brought us together in a way we couldn't do before they came.  We found a common affection and a common love for two human beings that changed our lives.  

How does the journey look now that she doesn't breathe anymore?  Now I get to keep looking for common ground.  I found a piece of that puzzle yesterday.  My cousin emailed me Jennifer's graduation picture.  I didn't have it in my vast library of photos, so I was very grateful to get it.  I dug out my graduation photo and put them together.  It was stunning how the similarities mixed well with the differences.  So much of the stories lined up.  We had the same photographer (Dad); we had similar styles of dresses; complementary and differing colours; the trees were the chosen backdrop for the photos.  

Maybe this journey of grief will uncover more common ground for my sister and I.  Even through her feet aren't around to walk on it, maybe I can still find her "Footprints in the Sand".  

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." Thomas Campbell