Wishing we had more time, wishing for one more day, another hour with a person before they leave us and move to another sphere — this is not an unfamiliar concept to most. Loss is all part of love, no doubt about it. You can only hope that regret does not tag onto that loss, because that can bring along with it an almighty, near-crushing weight; but loss alone is sometimes more than most of us feel we can bear. Especially in the early days.
My sister’s childhood friend Bella lost her son Barney in a horrible car accident in Australia. He was just 17. Actually, she didn’t lose him at all, he was killed. This happened in July, the same month I lost my sister. Again, I didn’t lose her, I know exactly where her remains are and what happened. Bella and I always try and send a few words to each other over the ether during the month of July in condolence, love and memory, since all those things are intertwined. When you have experienced enormous loss like she and I, there is a special lost club that you can share with others as unfortunate as yourselves. It’s a very comforting place. It’s rather a large club, the lost one, I’m afraid, and not one you get to graduate from.
“I bet I didn’t send you any condolences the July that Barn was killed,” she messaged me. (Two years after my sister passed.) “You did indeed,” I respond. “You told me that you could see the pair of them up to no good, wherever spirits go after they don’t need their bodies anymore.” Her grief was so intense at the time she didn’t remember reaching out, but I so appreciated her for that huge gesture of selfless love. I hope we can always do that, because grief is so solitary and isolating. No person’s is the same as yours. Yours is always worse, but theirs is bad too. Grief can also be a selfish harbor and one that is hard to leave without help.
I’ve noticed that the anniversary month you lose a loved one, they are always sharper in your aura, they come around, they drop by more than usual. Some show up as a dragonfly, bird or butterfly, others cascade into your dreams and make you feel that they have really paid a visit.
“I had several dreams about Barn this holiday,” Bella tells me (she’s holidaying in Croatia). “I always wake up feeling I have had a few minutes of bonus time with him.” I reflected on that. I know exactly what she means. My baby sister appears to me in ways you can seldom quantify — always the dragonfly, our messenger from other realms, but often the magic bird, the white dove, the formation of a cloud, the birth of a kitten. Perhaps my mind is just open and receptive to any nuances that show me she is close by, just around the corner from where I am currently standing, perhaps a few feet over my head. Always in my heart, yes. Always there.
My daughter feels the same way. She and my sister look very alike and have some similar personality traits. In fact, when I used to take her to Turkey, they thought she was actually Rosie’s child! “I remember being a little girl in Turkey,” she tells me. “I would just beg for moments alone with just me and her. There were always so many people wanting to be with her, inserting themselves into our space. Now I get those little times with her all by herself. Bonus time.”
When my daughter was in hospital with a broken back, she told me the following day she had seen a flash of light late at night. None of us were awake at the time — her boyfriend squeezed into her hospital bed with her, me on the window ledge. This light lit up at the end of her bed, she said, and then darted very quickly into the bathroom. She told me the following day that she believed Rosie had checked in with her at night and she had felt her love and concern wrapped all around her. Rosie, from another planet, had made her feel a little better about the horrible hand she had been dealt. And who knows what is true-true and what is our imagination going crazy, but I do love the check-ins, the visits and the bonus time. I choose to believe it all, because it’s all I know.
Life is a finite thing and bonus time doesn’t come to all. Rosie always talked about herself being a big old “cancer faker” because she had so much bonus time beyond her stage 4 diagnosis. After all, she lived with cancer for 16 years. Her best friend Charla took her on a ‘once in a lifetime’ helicopter ride to a very fancy restaurant in Monaco that she love-loved so much. “It’s cos I’m dying,” she tells me all matter of fact. When she was still very much breathing the following year, she had asked Charla if they could go again, she had enjoyed it so much. “God no, Bud!” exclaimed Charla. “That was a one-off thing. You are supposed to be dead!”
But Rosie was the first to say her cup had over brimmed with bonus times over her final years. As our other sister noted, we had enjoyed years of the final dinner, the final get-together, the final Christmas. Hers was the longest goodbye in the history of all farewells. But then you still wish for more. Whatever you are given is never enough. My friend just recently lost her 92-year-old father. She wrestles with the fact that he had a marvelous long life and yet she misses him so very much and wishes they had had more time. She looks for the bonus times. She’s finding they can show up when you least expect them. I’m glad she’s grabbing a hold of those.
I’ve enjoyed my bonus time with sister this July. I’ve felt her, seen her essence, listened to her voice and laughed at her funniness. I even heard her song “Ain’ no mountain higher” on the very day of the sixth anniversary of her passing. My gosh how I loved her. Still do. Still miss her, but I’m lucky to get my bonus times that I have come to adore and enjoy when I least expect them. I have to settle for that. It’s all I’ve got.
