Who knows where the time goes?

My darling sister Judith died just over a month ago.  There are some things that bring me close to her and are helping me in my grieving.  One of them is the beautiful album by Eva Cassidy, Imagine, which I found when clearing out her room in the care home she lived in for the past ten years.   On this album my most favourite song is Who knows where the time goes?  In the beginning of this song is the image of birds flying away, there is an ending that has occurred, a movement away, perhaps a change of season as there was when my sister passed, leading to an absence and at the base of it grief, a sense of a chapter ending.  This song and the instrumentation is so profoundly bittersweet and beautiful.  Music has a rare power to touch something deep in my soul, opening the underground river of grief that is there for the loss of my sister but also reminding me of the great joy and her deep, deep love of music and the gratitude I have for still being alive.  On Friday evening her youngest son became a father of twin boys, and I was reminded of the dark and the light, that in life some things are taken and new beginnings come following loss.  This too is bittersweet. My sister’s spirit lives on in her children and grandchildren.

(6) Eva Cassidy – Who Knows Where the Time Goes – YouTube

Many times I would I visit my sister in the care home and we would listen to music and sing together lyrics we both loved.   Yesterday I visited my other sister with my mother in hospital and on the way home my mother cried.  She told me that she was coming out of her unit and saw some people she knows.  When they mentioned my sister who died my mother cried.  The people she was with were embarrassed and did not know what to say.

I have just been given a thesis on sibling grief and loss by a Canadian woman, Brenda Marshall.  Brenda lost her younger brother just over eight years ago.  She loved her brother deeply and found it a very challenging loss as it was so difficult for her to find places to share her grief.  She began to research sibling loss and found a great silence surrounding it.  Siblings when loosing someone were the ones supporting others grieving, most particularly parents and children of their brother or sister but having to hold the grief silently due to lack of concern from others.  Brenda dealt with her grief by speaking about it and connecting with other grieving siblings three whose stories and experiences she explores in her thesis.  What helped these people to grieve was the ability to connect with their siblings possessions, things that had meaning and significance for them.  In my own place at the moment in every room there is some reminder of my sister.  Beautiful little cards, photographs, items of clothing, trinkets, scarves, jewellery, books of poetry and of course CDs.

Was it a divine piece of synchronicity which drew me to a counsellor who also had an interest in sibling grief.  Through my contact with Julie this thesis has been put in my hands and is helping me to understand the challenges faced by a grieving sibling.

I must admit Eva Cassidy’s song brought me to my knees this afternoon.  The kitchen floor was covered with teardrops which my dog Jasper licked up after instinctively drawing closer toward me to give me comfort.

These words came to me, so I wrote them down.

When my grief is fully spent

You will have pressed me down

So low

The lowest low

I will ever know

And when I rise

Again

The twisting and turning

Of old griefs

So long buried

Will, too have cycled their way out

I will turn again

To face a new day

Without the one’s I loved

Yet with the courage

To go on

Knowing true love never ends

And loving’s price

When faced with loss

Is a profound grief

To which these precious teardrops

Bear witness