"I'm Heidi's Sister"

It's a strange thing, losing your sister at the very point in life when there is hope for time and space to strengthen the friendship that took a back burner to the rightly-ordered demands of motherhood and family life. We had tastes of it during covid, and hoped for more, meeting outside sitting 6 feet apart, talking for hours. 

Following miscarriages, we discovered we were both pregnant, due only weeks apart. What fun it was to surprise our parents with that joyful news - the last picture of us, together. Her daughter, Margaret, was born two weeks before my daughter, Felicity. They were polar opposites from the start, and it was delightful to laugh with Heidi at their different personalities and corresponding developmental feats. 

Heidi didn't live to see her baby turn one. 

On January 4th I began nursing both babies, standing in only as "the milk lady" in the eyes of Margaret, who vehemently refused liquid in any other form, but willing accepted me. When she nursed, she clung on painfully with her teeth, leaving deep marks. I marveled that Heidi had endured that, and then realized with dismay that, more likely, this was Margaret's way of grieving; clinging in desperation to what was nearly-familiar. 

Teeth-clenching aside (which lessened as the days went by), nursing Margaret was a gift inasmuch as it was something I could do in a season of feeling mostly helpless, and never felt burdensome or heroic as some seemed to think it might. Weaning her, though, was heartbreaking because it underlined two things: 1) It was me, not Heidi, who was the last to nurse her baby, and 2) Heidi didn't wean for *years* and this abrupt and early but necessary ending was one of the many cruelties that starkly underlined Margaret's loss, in particular. I was there for the birth of Heidi's first baby, and I weaned her last. It's not remarkable, but then again, it is.

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Growing up, I resented being introduced or remembered as "Heidi's sister." There were a few times when it left me in angry tears, even into young adulthood I'm embarrassed to admit. (Bearing that in mind, it's funny that, "I'm Heidi's sister," was exactly how I introduced myself to my future-husband, when we first met one evening at her house.) I know she was sympathetic, but she really shouldn't have felt she needed to be; it was my own immaturity and lack of confidence rather than any fault of hers. 

Regretfully, I don't know that I ever communicated how much joy it brought me to be able to share acquaintances or be known as her sister in adulthood when she lived locally. I grew to appreciate and love how very dissimilar we were while also being recognizably sisters. I could not have known that the prime of our lives was too late to treasure the gift of her sisterly love, wisdom, insight, maturity and friendship. I always assumed there would be time after babies to further plumb the depths with her. 

My consolations are the fragments she left in her binders that offer glimpses into her mind and heart, each of her children in whose faces I see different wonderful Heidis looking up at me, the company of her husband who is her other half and helped form whom she became, each story I hear about her from others which offers me a glimpse of another facet of the amazing person she was, and every time I hear, "You're Heidi's sister."