February 18th would have been my Sister's 36th birthday.  On March 17th this year it has been 18 years since she left us for heaven.  That means that she has been gone as long as her short time on earth. February and March bring up a lot of memories and pain.  I find myself wondering what it would be like to have my sister here.  What would she be doing now? Would we be close?  Those are questions I will never have answers to and it hurts. I know that losing a child is horrendous and it is a pain that I would never wish on anyone, but losing a sibling is pretty dang hard too.  A lot of the attention after the death goes to the parents and the remaining siblings get brushed aside.  The deceased sibling also gets put on a pedestal that you feel like you can never reach, no matter what.  I pray that my children will never have to suffer a big loss like that.  It changes you.  I miss my Sister.  Every big life event I long for her to be there.  I wanted her at my wedding, I wanted her to be at the birth of her Niece and Nephews.  I want my children to be able to call up Aunt Amber and chat.  It feels so wrong to be older than my big sister will ever be.  I know that God has a plan and I hope to use my grief to help others, but that doesn't stop it from sucking.  It doesn't stop the pain I get in my heart when someone mentions their sister.  It also pains me that Aurora will never have a sister to bond with.  She will be fine, since she will never know better.  But I know what she is missing out on.
My last memory of my sister was not exactly the memory I would have wanted, but it was a good one.  I was taking a nap in my parents bed and she came in to get some candy from my Mom's hidden stash.  I was just waking up and she asked me how I was doing.  It doesn't seem like much, but considering I was the pesky little sister and we weren't exactly getting along at that moment in time, it meant everything to me.  I also remember going downstairs and sneaking a pair of her jeans to wear to school the morning she got sick.  Her door was cracked and I was just praying that she wouldn't wake up and catch me.  Later at the hospital after she was pretty much gone, the nurses asked me to tell her something that would make her angry to get a response, so I told her that I was wearing her jeans.  You don't want to know what she would have done to me if she was awake. :)  Being so young, I assumed she would recover from her illness, because in my mind, young people didn't die.  So when my Mom and I got to the hospital that morning and my Dad greeted us at the elevator sobbing, I quickly discovered that I was wrong.
Another person that crosses my mind during these months is Matt, my Sister's boyfriend.  He had just given her a promise ring for her birthday.  It was her birthstone and she loved it so much.  It was a no-brainer to bury her with it.  Matt is one of those people that suffered so much at such a young age.  His Dad died from a freak electrical accident at his work.  He spent 5 agonizing months in the burn unit until he finally passed away. Then my Sister passed away from a freak disease.  Then his younger brother fell of Crown Point and died.  My Mom and his Mom are still friends, so we get updates about Matt.  He is very successful, but I can't imagine the pain he struggles with.  I know it is hard for me to get updates on my Sister's friends.  A lot of her friends got married or had their first kid in the last few years and it just leaves me wondering more of what might have been.
I will never have the answers to my questions, but I will still be asking them. 





Here are some photos we took at the Cemetery over the weekend.  I do believe that I am one of a very few that have photo shoots at a cemetery.  I felt a little weird asking the kids to pose and smile.

Visiting Aunt Amber.

Ignore the dead flowers.  I took the pictures before new ones were put in.  :)

My Sister's "view."

Landon next to Grams.

My great Grandparents Grammy and Pa. The ones with the purple flowers.

Trevor doing his cemetery pose. :)

A little cemetery humor.  I know my sister would chuckle if she knew she was close to Minnie Weene. :)

This song was written by Blake Shelton.  Blake lost his brother when he was younger.  It is a very touching and emotional song.  Losing a sibling puts you in a exclusive club that you never want to be in.