My big sister Stephanie

Steph died two years ago tomorrow, and it feels like a million years and yesterday. She’s even become sort of famous in a macabre sort of way – she has her own Storm Story on the freakin weather channel. She’d have loved that. I think she always wanted to be a star, the blonde bombshell that she was, Daryl Hannah with boobs. and really, she was a star. everyone who met her fell in love with her. I idolized her. And I miss her.

She was on her farm when the tornadoes came – they were right in the path, so she went to be with her horses in the barn, calming them, playing with them, keeping panic at the door, keeping them from hurting themselves. Mike tried 3 times to get her to come to the shelter, and she refused, she was staying with the horses, protecting them with her courage - i don't know why they didn't let them out to fend for themselves. Too protective, maybe? Finally, he convinced her to go, and they ran for the storm cellar, but the tornado came up over the barn – mike threw steph to the ground and covered her with his body. And old oak was shattered by the twister as it went over, and part of it fell, hitting Steph. Head injury, it was instant. Mike was ok, but shattered inside. He would take a long time to heal. The barn was ok and her horses safe.

Any time I see television footage now of tornadoes, I freeze, pulse races, throat catches, can’t breathe, can’t look away. I got the call from my mother, at 11:00 pm Sunday, May 4, 2003. Late night calls are never good, and I picked up, terrified. “I have some horribly sad news”, mo said. “it’s Stephanie. She’s been killed in a storm”, and everything else she said went to fog. “I’ll be there tomorrow” I said, bodiless voice from nowhere, just reacting, knowing I had to get there, somehow. “I love you”, she said. “I love you too, so so much”, and we hung up. I cried a little, then started shaking and realized that I was not going to be able to get home without help. I couldn’t remember anyone’s phone number, so I hit re-dial, and marcus answered. “I need your help. My sister’s been killed and I have to get home.” “I’m on my way” was all I remember him saying., although I’m sure he asked for details and how and what and where about this sister he’d never met.

And then he’s here, holding me, taking the phone out of my hand that I didn’t remember holding, and I start breathing again, crying, shaking, so much pain trying to come out all at once. Even now it stops me, the pain comes again and the time doesn’t matter, having gone through all the steps of grieving doesn’t matter, I hurt and I miss my sister and I cry and I want her back, damnit.

“let me think for you”, he said, and my sweet man got me on the first flight out, arranged a car rental, stayed at my house with pup, even mowed the lawn, fer cryin in the ketchup. How do such beautiful, wonderful people keep showing up in my life? He and my girl mb even cleaned the house before I got back. I am so lucky to have such amazing, caring people who love me so much.

Here’s my view of life: horrible, painful, terrible things happen. I do NOT believe (caution: religious-ish views ahead) that there is a god sitting on a cloud deciding that some random person should die a horrible sudden painful death because said god had a job for said innocent to do. When good-intentioned folk tried to comfort me with “god needed her more, it’s part of god’s plan” bullshit, I gritted my teeth and thanked them, because I knew they meant well. I can’t believe that there is a god so cruel. I won’t. I refuse.

What I do believe is that bad things happen, and love heals it. We are on this earth to help each other through the shit, linked arm in arm, holding each other up in turn. I was held up, lifted up, by the support (oh, but I understand that word so much more now) and love of my friends for me and for my family. Cards, e-mails, flowers, donations to animal shelters, so many beautiful bits of love flying to us and wrapping us up, protecting us, comforting us, carrying us in a crazy quilt of kindness.

I was home for a week, helping with the arrangements, taking phone calls from the papers, answering the door and talking with people who brought ham, flowers, casseroles, more ham, and oh, yes, some ham. It is Missouri, after all. The funeral was small, just family and close friends, not religious so much. For the reception after, we found great photos of steph; showing her saddlebreds, feeding gulls in mexico, in a party hat when she was little – we put that one in a snow-globe. Steph had a beautiful ironic, wry sense of humor and would’ve liked that. We talked and laughed about the crazy Stephanie stories. Most everyone said I look just like her, and those were the best compliments of my life. My little sister and big brother and i just sort of huddled together with my parents, trying to find a way to be a family without her.

Previous losses by death, divorce, breakups small and large, felt like there was a hole in me somewhere. A limb missing, a task forgotten, an indefinable something out of place. Losing Stephanie was loss beyond everything. I feel diminished on the cellular level. She and I and my brother and little sister are of the same stuff of life, the same dna, the same playdoh. Without her, we’re an incomplete set. The grief in my parents is palpable, and they’ve become old, even elderly. No parent should ever lose a child. Ever, ever. I cry for my parents’ pain and hope for their comfort.

I’ve had one dream of steph. She wore a fantastically colored sweater, out by her paddock, and everything was early-spring green and lush. Her hair was dark (no Clairol in heaven, maybe?) and long and pulled back into a ponytail. She had a huge smile and I asked her if she were ok, and she nodded, and grinned, and hugged me. As I woke up I could still feel the hug.

i think about her every day. i look in the mirror, trying to see her face in mine. i feel like i need to live a better life now, experience it more fully, so she'll somehow get to live along with me.

xxoo