All I was doing was watching my Twitter stream. I clicked on a link, and then the tears began. I never expect it, and there’s no telling what will set it off.
This time it was a simple note about an SXSW event. The South by Southwest Music Conference and Festival (SXSW) has been raising a storm in Austin every year since 1987, and yet I’ve never attended. That in itself is passing strange, especially since my sister T. and her husband would have been the perfect hosts and given me a place to stay, right up until she died in 2010. (Just another example of how I held myself back for so many years, and make sure you don’t do the same.)
The SXSW event (and tweet) in question was about a simple thing that typifies the good life down in Austin, free barbecue and beer for the first 100 people to show up for a party put on by the developer of the theme I use here on this website. I’d be damn proud to be there, too, and shake his hand. When I visited the event page, I saw the Google map in the sidebar… Jesus! Not only was the venue in my sister’s old neighborhood (J.Mueller BBQ in South Austin, 1502 S. 1st), but I was looking at the very street she lived on. If I were staying with my brother-in-law, I’d be able to walk there in 10 minutes. Oh, Lord.
I don’t mind telling you I crumpled like I’d been hit with a wrecking ball. The sadness is inexpressible. I never realized how close my sister and I were until after she had died, and now it’s too late to make amends. For most of the time she lived and thrived in Austin, I was too busy, too poor, too otherwise preoccupied to show up for a visit until her illness. (We just never know, do we?) She visited me any number of times, of course, and when I was in my darkest period of loneliness and poverty here in Taos, she sent me a “care package” of warm clothes from her favorite thrift store. I still wear most of those things almost every day—in fact, I’m wearing the gray long-sleeved knit shirt right now.
When I went to see her in the summer of 2010, I hadn’t visited Austin in years. As I pulled up to the curb out front, I saw her standing on the second floor balcony waiting for me, looking beautiful in a long dress of a type I’d never seen her wear. She came down to greet me at the door. I started to say, “You didn’t have to get dressed up—” [just for me] and then I caught myself, realizing that her clothing allowed room for the bulge I hadn’t noticed from the street. You never forget a thing like that, the physiognomy of approaching death, nor do we ever expect to see that in a loved one.
After she died, my cousin Joyce sent me an email saying, “Teresa worshipped you—did you know that?” And I’m ashamed to say I guess I didn’t. Big brothers can be stupid in that way. Learn from my example and do better:
You may never get another chance.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m so sorry you’re feeling the immense loss of your sister this week, John. My thoughts are with you and I hope your good memories of her bring you peace. I can’t imagine losing my sister and I’m so sorry you did.
It sucks to get old. Everybody dies on you. Sibling deaths are just the worst, too. Teresa and I were allies against the tyranny of the dysfunction that surrounded us. We understood things my younger siblings still don’t really get.
That’s another irony: everyone grows up with completely different impressions of essentially the same thing! Requires great compassion and restraint. Sometimes I’m up to it.
My sister and I are *extremely* close because we rely on each other more than siblings should have to. She is so incredibly precious to me. A therapist once told me siblings often grow up in “different families” and I think it’s true. I took your post to heart & booked a ticket to visit my sister in a couple months. I’m still so very sorry you lost your best sis.
My remaining sister is a gem as well, however. She’s the youngest and did grow up in a different family, so to speak.
Good for you, to jump on this and go see your own sister. I’m glad the blog post made a difference.
Losing siblings sux. Cancer took my baby sister a couple of years ago, and it’s a hole different from the ones left by other departed friends and relatives. And I, too, missed many opportunities with her as adults – thinking there was no reason not to put things off… Hard lessons.
I can see you get it.
Yes, a very different kind of hole. The missed opportunities are especially poignant because a sibling is someone you really could have shared a lot more with, and in a deeper way, than even with a best friend. I’m trying to do better with the family and time I still have left.
Loosing family is hard. I lost my only daughter with cancer in 1999. She was only 46 years old. She left behind a husband, daughter and 2 sons and a granddaughter. I still miss her, even more as the years go by and you think of all the special times you could have had. You have to cherish the good times and not dwell on the bad times.