Authored: April 8, 2024

PROSE

Countless families, have their own stories. Estrangements, fights, hatreds, dysfunction, anger, resentments. I remember at some point, when we were younger, there was hope and there was light in the midst of darkness. But we were victims of those older than us, wiping away our innocence and replacing it with animosity and viewpoints that held us down like boar constrictors.

My sister, we parted ways and for many years we never spoke. You and I never mended things. You never told me of your sickness, that cancer that took you in 4 weeks. You held sway over your daughters, and it is one thing to find out you died and having no chance to say goodbye.

Today I saw your last few weeks of life in pictures. You suffered. And I could not say my goodbyes. A new wave of grief has hit me. Memories sway my soul. We were Human, caught in the mechanisms of remembering those who were our parents in different forms and ways. I did not have a chance to say goodbye. Your body was taken quickly into cremation soon after death.

These pictures of you, I will not share online, but hold them in a folder, and I will save those with a smile. Because I want to remember you with a smile. All those hateful words, those actions of brimstone, I forgive you and I let it go.

I love you, my sister. I will grieve and I will take closure that you no longer are suffering.

The damages have been done, and the past is just that. I wish we could have said goodbye to each other.

Vale, Svetlana. May we meet again.