The first time I lost my sister.

The first time I lost my sister, she didn't die. She was just gone.

When I was little, before my dad kicked her out of our house, I used to sneak into her bedroom whenever she wasn't home. It was my favorite place.

No one else would have ever understood why. No one needs to.

Her room was always a mess.

The bed was never made.

Clothes covered the floor.

Drawers were left halfway open with things spilling out.

Half-burned candles sat on dressers layered with dust so thick you could have written your name in it.

There were little piles everywhere, things that probably made perfect sense to her but looked like beautiful chaos to me.

I was always careful not to touch the dresser, because if I left fingerprints in the dust, she would know I had been there.

I never wanted her to know.

Those quiet moments belonged only to me.

That little room became my sanctuary. Somehow, sitting in the middle of all that beautiful chaos made me feel close to the person I loved most.

Everywhere I looked, there were purses.

One on her bed.

One on the dresser.

Another leaning against the closet door.

One she had used the night before, another she hadn't touched in weeks.

They were the oversized bags she carried through everyday life, and every one of them held little pieces of her world.

Gum.

Loose change.

Matches.

Receipts.

Little odds and ends that probably meant nothing to anyone else.

I would quietly slip a stick or two of gum into my pocket.

A handful of coins.

A book of matches.

Not because I needed them, but because they belonged to her.

Somehow carrying those tiny things made me feel like I carried a little piece of my sister too.

She also had these intricate little beaded purses, but they were different. Those weren't everyday purses. Those were treasures. She found them at estate sales or saved enough money to buy one every now and then. They weren't valuable because they cost a lot of money, they were valuable because she had worked so hard to have them.

I don't remember her ever telling me they were special, she didn't have to, the way she wrapped them in tissue paper or carefully placed them on her dresser told me everything.

I would lift one into my lap and run my fingers across every tiny bead.

I felt elegant.

Fancy.

Just like her.

Because from where I stood, she was everything.

She was funny.

Colorful.

Messy.

Chaotic.

Beautiful.

Complicated.

She was all the things I didn't understand and all the things I hoped I might someday become.

Her closet looked enormous to me then, but looking back, I know it wasn't. But as a little girl it felt like a whole world tucked behind one small door, overflowing with colorful clothes, scarves, jackets, and shoes with those wonderful chunky heels women wore in the sixties and seventies.

Her room smelled different from anywhere else in the house. Today I know it was probably patchouli, cigarette smoke, and little perfume samples she picked up somewhere along the way.

Back then... it simply smelled like her.

Then one day my dad kicked her out.

Her room was empty.

That was the first time I lost my sister.

There were a few times when my parents would leave us alone in the house, and she somehow knew, and would sneak in to visit us, bringing Campbells soup, some kind of candy treat, and small gifts she would secretly hide under our beds.

And then I lost her again, I didn't see her for a few years.

Years later she married and became a mother to two beautiful daughters whom I love dearly and probably don't tell often enough.

She was still wonderfully chaotic.

Still messy.

Still completely herself.

She was also an incredible mom.

I didn't get to see her very often, but whenever she showed up at my mom's house, I would spend more time watching her than talking to her. There was this ache inside me that I didn't have words for yet. I just wanted more of her.

Then she would leave. Sometimes for months. Sometimes longer.

And every time she drove away...

I lost her again.

Life kept asking my sister to begin again.

A relationship would end.

A job would change

And she would have to move. Again.

Life would shift beneath her feet, and she would carefully pack everything she owned into a storage unit until she found solid ground again.

But somehow, almost every time... she lost her stuff in storage.

I remember how much that hurt my heart.

She never owned expensive things. Most of what she had wouldn't have meant much to anyone else.

But to her... those things held memories.

They held pieces of her story.

Somewhere inside those storage units were the little beaded purses she had searched for at estate sales, the ones she carefully saved for, the ones she quietly treasured.

Each time she lost a storage, it felt like she lost chapters of her own life.

And every single time... she started over.

Not because she wanted a different life.

Not because she was trying to become someone new.

She simply picked herself up, dusted herself off, and kept moving forward.

Looking back now, I think that's one of the things I admired most about her.

She never let loss have the final word.

Then my mom died.

I lost my mother that day, but I think I lost another piece of my sister too.

Grief changed her.

Or maybe life had already been changing her for years.

I wasn't close enough to know.

And life pulled us apart again.

Another goodbye.

Another loss.

Eventually we found each other once more.

She was remarried to a man I really, really liked. She had more children.

Our children spent time together.

We made memories.

I got to know her as a woman instead of just the sister I had spent years trying to become.

And then...

she got sick.

Really sick.

And she died.

That was over ten years ago.

That goodbye broke me.

But by then, I finally understood who she was. I understood how deeply she loved.

How fiercely she protected me, even from a distance.

How she somehow always made people feel seen.

She always gave away something far more valuable than money.

She gave her time.

Her presence.

Her heart.

I understand now what a gift that really is.

Even as I write this, I feel like I am losing her all over again.

Maybe that's what grief really is.

Not one heartbreaking goodbye...

but all of them.

I have a little beaded purse that I found years ago in a thrift store.

I don't carry it.

It sits quietly hidden on the corner of my dresser where no one really notices it.

Not because I am hiding it.

Because somehow it feels sacred.

Sometimes I pick it up and run my fingers across every tiny bead.

And for a moment I am that little girl again, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my sister's room, surrounded by her beautiful chaos, wishing I could grow up to be just like her.

Sometimes I look at my own closet, which is more organized than hers was, but it is packed full, colorful and gypsy-like…  just like hers was.

My “junk” drawers somehow make perfect sense… to me.

I have purses tucked into corners of my room, and little collections of the things that I gathered over the years.

And I laugh.

Because somewhere along the way...

I did grow up to be just like her.

A little chaotic.

A little messy.

A collector of stories.

A keeper of treasures.

And... someone who understands that the things we save are rarely about the things themselves, they are about the people we were when we found them, the memories they hold, the stories we tell over and over again, sometimes only to ourselves.

I lost my sister many times before she died.

That's what grief has taught me.

Sometimes grief begins long before their last breath.

Sometimes it begins with an empty bedroom.

And sometimes it lives quietly inside a little beaded purse sitting on top of a dresser.

Every time I look at my little beaded purse… I smile, because I know she would have loved it.

xo

Gabby