Fraud

A few days ago I had a grief attack - when the grief hits suddenly and hard and sticks around for a while. These are, thankfully, happening less often but they're still serious when they do hit. This one had me crying in the middle of the grocery store to begin with, but it wasn't until later that night that it really took hold and I cried gut-wrenching sobs for over an hour.

When the crying ceased and my tears had dried, I started looking at some old pictures from when my sister and I were kids. Since then, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that my whole childhood was a fraud. There I was in the photos - young and innocent and impressionable - with this older sister. Older sisters are supposed to look after you and pick on you and make you eat their vegetables and all sorts of other things. Most importantly, they're not supposed to die.

My sister and I were not overly close as children or as adults, but we were close enough for it to matter.

But here I am now, looking back, wondering why. Why did it matter? Why is she gone? Why was I allowed to have her in the first place? I feel like Jim Carrey's character in the movie, The Truman Show, where he grows up on a reality show but thinking it's real life. At some point he figures it out and realizes his whole life has been a fraud. That's how I feel. My whole life I've believed that I had a sister that I thought I would have forever (or at least until we were really old).

It was all just one big lie.