Death and the Family - It's Not Over

                I woke up on St. Patrick’s Day at about 4:00 AM in 2010. I shared a bedroom with my older sister, Elizabeth; she had been my best friend since we got over our sibling rivalries before I could remember. I also shared a room with my younger sister, Abby, six years my junior. At the time she was only four.

                But both of their beds were empty.

                I checked the bathroom and the kitchen before I heard a movie playing downstairs. I imagined Sis must have come down with the stomach flu, or they were celebrating the holiday early without telling me. I picked my way down the dark, carpeted stairs, where I came upon my younger sister watching a Disney movie quietly. My cousin Ben had come to stay with us for the school year, and he was there with Abby.

                No Elizabeth.

                “Ben, where’s my sister?” I asked. I couldn’t conjure up anything for myself; it wasn’t like her to disappear.

                “She’s at the hospital,” he said.

                “The hospital?! Why?”

                “I don’t know. She was having a lot of stomach pain, so your parents took her to the hospital.”

                Later that afternoon, she returned from surgery with a small cut in her abdomen. She had contracted appendicitis during the night, but she recovered quickly after they removed the organ.

                Most of the day, I had no idea what had happened, but my gratitude and fear regarding my family grew simultaneously. The idea that I could lose my sister reminded me over the next few weeks—and a little less frequently ever since—that I needed to be close to her. Her issue wasn’t fatal, but I recognized that my family could be on the brink of losing a member at any moment.

                Losing a loved one is one of the greatest burdens a family can take. We didn’t come close to losing my sister that day, and we haven’t lost a single one of us since. But I’ve seen other families where they have lost a member, and I feel like it is important for all families—close to losing a member or not—to prepare for that difficulty.

                Growing close as a family and not taking each other for granted is one of the greatest things we can do to mitigate pain and create a happy family while we are all still mortal. Without doing these things—without appreciating each other—deaths or any other family tragedies are likely to end in great regret, antagonism, and turmoil.

                I hope I don’t sound like I’m making a doomsday prophecy for your family; that is not my intent. I hope you look at this with a perspective of existence after Earth life. I personally do not believe that mortality is futile; I truly believe that there is some reason for us being here more than living, reproducing, working, and dying.

                Think about the idea of just living here and not having any destiny otherwise. What happens to the spirit of life within a formerly living being? Where does it go? Does it truly just dissipate?

                I don’t know about you, but it sounds depressing to me. And I feel like that would only crush a family further and drive them apart from each other: why would you remain close if it wasn’t going to amount to anything good beyond the unknown, limited amount of time you are here?

                Looking at time as a beyond-life idea, family is worth everything that you have. Stressors and pains will attempt to drive you apart, but standing strong and loving each other, working through those stressors instead of running away, will perform more good for you than you could ever imagine.