Cleaning out the Inbox

I hate today. I am at my new job and since I'm still "training" I have some free time on my hands. I recently downloaded the new IOS on my iPhone and was looking through all the new features. I came across the mail app and noticed an account that I do not use anymore. There were almost 11,000 unread messages. I hadn't checked it since before the holidays. Christmas that is. 

That was a horrible time for me. My sister was hospitalized and ultimately died on January 4th. Absolutely horrible time.   Since then I have let many things slide in my life, finding that there is just no motivation to do many of the things I did before. It's like I have two lives:  the one when my sister was alive, and this one where she is not. I just didn't realize until now that cleaning out my emails would be so difficult. 

Anyway, with some free time on my hands I decided to delete these 11,000 messages.  Unfortunately - even with the new IOS - iPhone doesn't have a "delete all" or "select all" button.  I have to click on Edit, then click on each message and hit delete.  Once they're highlighted I can click on delete and away they go!  Each one..... all 11,000 of them.  So I start with the most current and work my way backwards.  Here goes...

I'm in July, then June, then May and so on.  The closer I get to January the more uncomfortable I'm feeling.  I did NOT want to get to the 4th.  For no good reason, the tears began to fall.  I could no more control them than I can control my own heartbeat.  

I have no idea what I was afraid of.  Maybe deleting the messages from that day would delete my sister?  Maybe I was afraid of coming across an unread message of condolence?  I shouldn't have worried about that, I couldn't see the messages at all through my tears.  I sat at my desk crying and snuffling, praying that no one would notice.  They didn't.

I could just hear Cheryl now saying "oh Tracy, don't be an ass, they're just emails!"  I deleted them all.  I still have some messages to go.  There are the ones from the day my sister was intubated, when she was placed on dialysis and the day of her surgery.  

I will keep her voice in my head and her smile in my heart and work through the cleaning up of my inbox.  Love you, sister.  

The Day My Sister Died

i remember it so vividly, like it happened just yesterday.  But it didn’t.  It’s been eight months.  EIGHT MONTHS.  I can’t believe you’ve been gone that long.  We were sitting in that room in the hospital that no one ever wants to enter.  It’s the “Family Room” where the social worker sits with her compassionate face and words; where the staff brings you things like soda and cookies all for free.  We were jam packed into that room.  My sister was such a strong force that everyone wanted to be there to see her one last time before the machines were turned off.   We were just sitting there. 

 

We stood around her bed and held hands while the priest prayed over her.  We all joined in prayer as well.  We watched as the doctor and nurse disconnected all the machines.  We saw my sister open her eyes one last time and take her last breath.  We stood there as my niece fell on the floor crying, as my parents watched their oldest child die.  People stood around for a respectable amount of time and then began filtering out.  We were ushered into the family room to allow time for my brother-in-law to say his private goodbye to my sister. 

 

Sitting in that room – that damn room – people occasionally got up to step out, make a phone call, go outside for air, go back in to visit my sister.  I just sat there.  My mother came in and made a phone call that no mother should ever have to make – she called the funeral home to pick up my sister’s body.  I couldn’t take it any longer.  My family was there, my children and their spouses; but I couldn’t sit there any longer.  I HAD to leave.  I felt I should be there for my mother, make sure she was ok.  It’s what my sister would have wanted.  I was losing my composure though, I was losing my patience.  I couldn’t be nice any longer.  I HAD to leave. 

 

Why am I going there today?  Why today of all days?  It’s not a Friday, it’s not the 4^th of the month, and it’s not my sister’s birthday.  Why today?  I’ve been at my new job for two weeks and this is the first time that I have cried here.  I can’t control it any more now than I could have that morning.  That awful Friday morning, on the 4^th of January, 2013.  The day my life changed forever.  The day I lost my sister.