So Im having a lot of firsts since my sister died in march 2023. A lot of them are unexpected.
I expected her birthday to be hard but it was only a couple of months after she died so i think i was still in shock.
I expected christmas to be hard, which it was.
However, i didnt expect to find new year as hard as i did. I hate the fact i can now say she died last year. I feel like im leaving her behind.
My birthday was on the 10th Jan and it felt really heavy. I just wanted her phonecall and message. Nothing else was cutting it. And i felt so bad cos my family and friends were really trying to make it special. I was grateful to them and told them as much but it was hard.
However, 15th January would have been my dads birthday, and 25th January is the 9th anniversary of his death. The 10 days between his birthday and his death in 2015 were horrific. He deteriorate rapidly but hung on and on for days at the end. We sat by his bed day and night for 5 days, we slept in little plastic chairs, jumping anytime his morphine pump went off or panicking anytime he held his breath as he was prone to doing. My sister and i fought my dads corner for 4 years during his illness. Drove 200 miles every weekend for a year. Spent entire school holidays away from our own lives with him. Fought with some social workers (this is not a criticism of social workers or nhs staff in general, he had some outstanding support around him and im so grateful to them, but he had some awful ones that did make it a fight and have now actually been taken to court by other families who experienced the same thing) and drs. Negotiated and organised things with the council housing, and nursing homes etc
And i would do every minute of it again. Every single minute, because it was for my dad and my sister was at my side all the time.
I dont think i was expecting this time of year to be so hard again. Not only am i now missing my dad but all my memories of what happened to dad are tied up with my sister. And it feels horrific.
Has anyone else found this? I find myself back to feeling like im going crazy.