By the time I got home and raced to the hospital, her heart had already stopped. It all happened in the blink of an eye.
That morning, we'd eaten breakfast together, said goodbye to each other at the front door—me going off to high school, she to junior high. And the next time I saw her, she'd stopped breathing.
Her large eyes were closed forever. Her mouth, slightly open as if about to say something. Her developing breasts would never grow.
The next time I saw her, she was inside a coffin. She was dressed in her favorite black velvet dress with a touch of makeup. Her hair was neatly combed. She had on black patent leather shoes and lay face up in a modestly-sized coffin. The dress had a white lace collar. So white, it looked unnatural.
Lying there, she looked like she was peacefully sleeping. Shake her a bit and she'd wake up, it seemed. But that was an illusion. Shake her all you want, but she would never awaken again.
I didn't want my little sister's delicate little body to be stuffed into that cramped confining box. Her body should be laid to rest on a much more spacious place. In the middle of a meadow, for instance.
We should wordlessly go to visit her pushing aside the lush green grass as we went. The wind would slowly rustle the grass. And birds and insects should call out from all around her. The raw smell of wildflowers should fill the air, pollen swirling around. When night fell, the sky above would be dotted with countless silvery stars. In the morning, a new sun should make the dew on the leaves of the grass sparkle like jewels.
But in reality, she was packed away in some ridiculous coffin. The only things decorating the scene around her coffin were ominous white flowers that had been snipped by scissors and stuck in vases.
Holly Margl is the award-winning author of Witnessing Grief; Inviting Trauma and Loss to Our Coaching Conversations, An Enneagram Perspective, coach, coach mentor, and trainer specializing in grief, trauma, and the Enneagram.
