My Best Friend's Sister
I have known my best friend for about 13 years now. Along with her came her crazy family, who I eventually would consider my own. This included her three sisters and her brother, though I never saw much of him, and her parents- who I, to this day, call "mommy" and "daddy" in the irritating singsongy voice that I annoy them in.
When you have a best friend, everything that they feel, you feel too. It happens with time. No matter how stupid the reason, if she's pissed, I'm pissed too because it doesn't matter what caused it. If they're in pain, so are you. That's what best friends are for...so anyone they love, you love too (with the exception of some not-so-great significant others that we all go through). This means that it would be literally impossible to NOT love her family. It was automatic, and eventually, it was something I throughly enjoyed. You get to a point where there's no line between their family and your family, it's all just mashed together into one big family.
Today was just a normal day to me. I dragged myself out of bed to go to my second job, went grocery shopping, ate dinner, and relaxed on the couch to watch some TV. This week has been full of tragedy all over the world, just this morning my best friend and I were discussing the horrific passing of Christina Grimmie, a beautiful and insanely talented woman, who we've been watching on YouTube for years. Our conversation ended as I headed into work and she headed to the choir she participates in.
Later, I received some urgent texts from one of her sisters, asking me where she was, or if I could get a hold of her. I instantly knew there was something wrong, but she wasn't answering me either, and her sister didn't tell me what was happening; despite my asking, which is understandable now.
Fast forward to a few hours later, and I open my phone screen to a text message and missed calls from my best friend. The message read, "Call me" and it solidified that something bad had happened.
You know how you just know something absolutely terrible has happened just by the sound of someone's voice? I knew. The "Hello?" that her voice asked me when she picked up sent my heart to an instant pound and through the blur of her sobs I heard her sister's name, and died. My jaw fell to the floor and I instantly asked her to repeat herself. I heard it again. I stood in front of my closet, mouth agape, listening to her cry. The breath was literally taken out of my lungs as I struggled to find my voice somewhere.
Bad things seem to always happen to good people. I instantly wanted to know everything, but my words were missing and all I could say was, "Please tell me you're kidding." and, "Oh my God.." and all sorts of emotions flowed through my body. Anger, hatred, sadness, you name it. Of course, my first thought is, her sister's daughter; her niece...my niece. It felt like a dream, like a cruel, sick joke of a dream. Unfortunately, this is reality.
I spent most of the phone call in silence, listening, but asked about everyone in the family. My heart shattered for her little niece, for her parents, her siblings, for everyone. It hit everyone out of no where; she'd just moved into her first home, and everything was going well.
My mind is now going through every memory I have with her sister. There's 13 years of me hanging around with her stored away in my brain. Playing games on their huge porch, sitting in her bedroom while she showed us her notes from her Italian class, banging on pots and pans with her New Year's Eve, us annoying her because we were being too loud, us sitting around and laughing obnoxiously with her, us helping her dye her hair, me and her pretending to get married as she liked to remind me (even though I don't remember), visiting her at the hospital when she had her daughter, the text conversation we had just had about me coming to see the house and visit...I simply can't wrap my head around it.
This is one of the most unreal experiences of my life. Yes, people have passed away that I've loved and it's never been easy, but they've always been elderly, or I was younger, and it didn't process the same. This was a young girl in her twenties that I've known for almost my entire life; a daughter, a mother, a sister...
The pain that my "second family" feels is so real in my body, so heavy in my heart, that I am lost as to what to do. I love them with all of my heart, and I can't imagine what it's like for them to have to go through this, and I only wish that I could change what has occurred.
All I can really say now is, rest in peace.
June 12, 2016