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.