To my dear readers at the end of what has been a very challenging year for many, many people across the world - I am deeply grateful for your presence here. I am grateful for all of you, reading, sharing and supporting my work. I look forward to writing more for you in the year to come, may we all continue to be blessed by the ordinary.
This last bit of writing for 2023 is about my sister and the ever expanding impact her life and loss has had on me. In the new year you'll see a continuation of this journey with grief, as well as ordinary poems, essays and art. Thank you for meeting me here.
It's been a year since my sister passed away and I still wake up with a start some mornings, still shocked by her passing. Some days are perfectly ordinary, some are desperately sad. Some days are profound and some days pass in the blink of an eye.
Thank you impermanence, the only surety is change.
Thursdays I fill my mug with jasmine green tea, one of my sisters favorites. We used to meet every Thursday, sometimes in person, sometimes over the phone, and have tea together. I’ve spent a year still making that cup of tea every week and then I stand by the window with my tea. I watch the water flow, the birds fly, and think a lot about my blue eyed girl.
It was a snowy Thursday when I saw the swans flying out of the clouds, white wings bright against the sky, appearing as suddenly as she left.
She left in the middle of her life like she could return at any moment. Books stacked in untidy piles, grocery lists scribbled on post it notes.
Everything has a tangible presence of her somehow. Not just her things, but the whole world too. And maybe everything hurts but the swans keep flying into the gray snow clouds, as if these dark skies could be transformed by their white wings sweeping across the sky, dusting away the magnificent shadow of death.
And then she'll step back into her life, singing as she tidies the piles of books and folds laundry in the corner.
Then the swans bank to the left, landing on the river, water rippling out behind them and I wish that I could reach out and kiss her soul, hold her whole being in my hands and never let her go.
The ice on the banks of the river collects in rough piles and the swans swim around them.
They swim in the waters of the underworld, plunging their heads under the dark cold water. They are at home in the sky, water, land and it's then that I realize, she is with me everywhere now. She will always be with me, every time I step foot out the door and walk across the land. Everyone we have ever lost can be found in the sunset, the sound of the wind, the smell of spring lilacs blooming.
I see her in the moon in starlight falling to earth in the bright blue wings of a jay and in the geese flying overhead I hear her voice in the water and the wind her heart holds me she is everywhere she is everywhere in every thing
The swans open their wings and lift off the water. They disappear again into the dark sky.
I thank the sky and the swans for checking on me. For sending me kind people who check in every now and again. For all the people who looked after us this Christmas season, keeping things magical for my children. For all the sunsets I still get to watch, and for all the people who watch sunsets now, for River.
For those readers who knew my sister, you may enjoy reading some of the love letters written to and about her by friends and family - you can find them here:
https://www.forevermissed.com/river-sillito/about
I am learning that grief is not just something we feel, but something we do, a thing we do for the rest of our loves and lives. For those of you also changed by grief and loss, I am resuming my Walking with Others series in February 2024. If you have a story, a memory, a poem to share about your journey with grief - please feel free to send it to rainesillito@gmail.com. I would be honored to receive and share your story.
I also want to know - what do you wish you could say right now to the person you miss the most? Hit reply, if you feel like it, and pretend you're writing to the one you miss the most. I promise to receive it with love.
If I could speak to my Rivvy Lou right now, I'd tell her: You continue to change my life, every single day. I'm living out loud because you want me to, baby girl and I will dance every day just like we did before you left. I save a cup of tea for you, all the time. I'm writing more too baby girl, I promise I won't stop. I'm gonna actually write those books we talked about and I'll never stop being a writer, no matter how hard life gets. I'm not moving on from you because there is nothing to move on from, because you are still part of my life. I feel you watching me and I will never stop moving through life with gusto, but damn it I'm taking you with me through it all, in my heart. Forever your big sister.
((()))
...Beautiful...