Bereft

I have finally received information about my niece Cara's death.  I reached out to a friend of hers and she was good enough to get back to me. Though they were friends, Cara's family notified them with only the barest of details.  No service for her, no obituary in the newspaper, nothing.  It upset her friend so much that she added a memorial to Cara onto her mother's headstone at a local cemetery.  A simple concrete rose.  To those who did not know either the mother or my niece, the rose will signify nothing.  But to us, it is everything.  I am so grateful to her friend for contacting me.  She gave me some reassuring information, and the fact that Cara was living with her parents at the time, and was taken to the hospital where she died of sepsis and multiple organ failure.  We don't know if it was connected to her death, but she had become addicted to opioids prescribed by her doctor.  The doctor cut her off cold turkey and so she managed to get the drugs from a dealer.  I can't help but wonder if her drug use contributed to her death.  I'll never know.

I just sent an email to my sister expressing my condolences and also my dismay that this information was withheld.  Crass?  I don't know. I needed to send it.  The family is oddly silent about this, but then I remember that my sister was a very private person.  Sort of pathological about it.  She didn't want me socialising with her and their friends because she didn't want me to 'spill' any information about her.  I wouldn't have, but there's the point.  There was a paranoia there that I couldn't understand.  She views herself as a very important person in town, an elite, if you will.  Anything that could affect her perceived reputation was to be avoided.

Here I am, dealing with my own grief in stages.  Learning in November the she had passed two years previously.  Learning some new details in December.  Hoping that Cara passed peacefully and knew that she was loved.  Forty years old is too young to die.  She had so much ahead of her.  I held her as a newborn, and loved her through her mischievous younger years.  Attended her high school graduation and cheered her on through many phases of her life.  I feel lost knowing I'll never see her again.  She trusted me with a lot of information about her struggles in life.  Her extreme upset at her family life.  I kept her confidences.  

Life is hard, isn't it?  I feel anger toward my sister for withholding this news.  She obviously had her reasons, but it feels personal.  I'll work on that.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy time with those I love and who love me.  We are not guaranteed anything in this life.