End of life support is not only about the final days. It is about the relationships we hold, the conversations we avoid, and the moments we wish we could have back.
Today is my eldest sister’s birthday.
She would have been 70.
I’ve been thinking all day about what we would have done. I can see it so clearly. Either she would have come to Victoria, or I would have gone there. We would have gone to Red Robin her favorite place. Nothing fancy, just her kind of place. My baby sister would have been there, her daughter, and her grandkids too. We would have sat around the table longer than we needed to, ordering more than we should, laughing too loud, telling the same stories we always told.
It would have been one of those gatherings where time just disappears.
She left this world on May 26, 2019. And the truth is, her health had been failing for a long time, so it’s hard to know what this birthday would have looked like physically. But I know the feeling of it. I know the love that would have been there.
When I think back to growing up in the late sixties and seventies, I was a troubled kid. There was a lot of chaos in our home. But my sister… she was my safe place.
She was everything I wanted to be.
She was classy and beautiful. She had the best apartments, always decorated in a way that felt warm and put together. I loved going there. I lived for the weekends she would come get me. Just getting out of that house, into her space, felt like breathing again.
We shared the same family, the same dysfunction, but she showed me there was another way to live.
She was my idol.
And that never really went away, even as we got older and our roles started to shift.
I was there when she had her babies. I was her birth doula for both of her children. Later in life, I supported her through a difficult marriage, and I was there through her sickness. We walked a lot of life together.
But we also lost time.
We fought. There were years we didn’t speak.
And that is one of my biggest regrets.
Letting distance grow between us. Letting relationships, especially with men, get in the way of us being sisters. Looking back now, it feels so unnecessary. If I could go back and change anything, it would be that. I would choose her. I would choose us, every single time.
Because the truth is, you don’t know how long you have.
You don’t know how much time you get with someone.
And when it comes to sisters… it’s different. We came from the same place. We survived the same things. We had a terrible mother, but we had each other.
That should have been enough. That should have always been what mattered most.
Today, I’m holding both the love and the regret. The laughter we shared and the time we lost. Missing her in a way that sits quietly but deeply.
Happy birthday.
I would have taken you to Red Robin today
Reflection: This is why these conversations matter. This is why I do this work. Because we don’t always get the chance to go back and say what we wish we had said. Creating space for honest conversations, for connection, and for understanding can change how we carry both love and loss.
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