Cry Standing Up

“We had a crowd at the house that night, and even though I was careful about the frailty of my glass; even though I remembered to hold it just tightly enough to keep my grasp, but not so tightly I caused it any more harm; even though I was cautious about the perspiration dripping down the sides... even so, my glass still broke. It broke in the darkness, the deep of the night so black the stars were barely visible. Just before 1 a.m., when the rest of the world had the audacity to be sleeping, that’s when it happened. And the world continued to slumber, just as it always had, just as if my glass, my special, perfect glass, had not just shattered all over the floor.” My soul had gone to sleep the day my sister died, and I wasn’t keen on the idea of waking it up. Being numb is a whole lot easier to handle than raw, screaming agony. And then I found out my brother had terminal lung cancer. What follows is my journey through the grief of losing my siblings. I wrote a lot during these years of aching loss and grief, and most of it is not pretty, but it is honest and real. My hope with this book is that others who are mourning might realize they are not alone in the way they feel. Deep grief changes people, that’s just a fact. It’s not an experience one can just “get over.” We can learn to live with it, though, accepting the waves of emotion that sometimes strike us out of nowhere. And in time, laughter will come again.