That was a verse that Sarah claimed.
She'd be turning 30 years old this year...one month from today to be exact. We shared a birthday month.
There are days that I feel cheated...I feel like God let her down...let us down...
The key word there is "feel"...because even though it doesn't "feel" good, I know that He still is and that He has a bigger purpose...even when I don't see it.
Being 7 and 12 years older than my little sisters, I wasn't exactly "present" in their everyday lives...I was off to highschool and basketball games, mission trips and study groups while they were still home playing polly pockets. As my youngest sister is entering a new phase in her life, as our "seasons of life" get closer together, I find that we have more in common and it's not just big sister/little sister...but it will turn more into friend/friend.
I never had, nor will have that with Sarah.
Her going to heaven changed a LOT of things...it changed our 'normal', it changed my parents (how could it not), it changed my perspective and my view of 'life'...I headed back to my senior year in college feeling rather lost...that led to a myriad of bad choices and broken relationships...
remember how I mentioned feeling "cheated"?
When I focus on all the "yuck" from that year and the ones that followed that seemed like the aftermath of her passing, I am angry...and yet, when I focus on everything else, I am amazed at what God pulled out of the mess and made into my life such happiness.
For those that don't know the "story" of my sister...well, it would take wayyyy more than one blog post to share it with you...but the condenses version is something along these lines:
Sarah was born with 4 holes in her heart way back in '81
She had open heart surgery at age one to close 3 of the 4 holes.
She was fine for 10 years or so...cheerleading, singing, piano, friends, school, vacations, camp...
All of a sudden she started having some major trouble and needed another open heart surgery to fix a valve.
They discovered she had Cardiomyopathy and would one day need a heart transplant (we just didn't realize that it would be so soon)
The summer of '95 she was at Lake Ann and passed out...I was in Australia on a mission trip...she came home and at the dinner table completely faded...my brother dialed 911 and 5 or 6 paddle shocks later, the squad had her breathing and on her way to the hospital...
She never left...
I came home on the 16th of July watching for my family at the end of the plane's exit ramp...everyone was there but Sarah....
They hadn't called and told me what had happened, so as I listened to my dad explain and my mom cry...I had this "feeling" that we were going to lose her.
We got to "hang out" together for 1 month...daily trips to the hospital, watching movies that she could only handle in small increments b/c her stamina was nearly non-existent.
Italian Stallion visited during this time and helped with a lot (I explained that in another post) and the night she called frightened b/c they had found a heart for her, we all sat huddled in my living room waiting for my parents to return from the hospital just so we could send them back (this was the time of NO cell phones)
The long and short of it is that the heart didn't work and her body couldn't take it any longer...a bubble got into one of the tubes and she had a stroke...
I didn't go back to see her...I wanted to remember her how I last "spoke" with her, when we signed "I love you" when she had first come out of surgery.
It's hard to go back and remember the details sometimes...I don't want to remember that she was in pain or that she was scared...but at the same time, that was reality and sometimes that memory helps me face things that I don't want to...
And so...it's 16 years today...and I chose to remember her laughter, the crazy matching outfits that our mom made us wear,
how she loved to visit me in college, how much of Sarah I see in my own Sweetpea, her love of all things neon and hats, her long fingers that played piano and made crafts...
I miss you sis!
