Let’s start by saying she died a little over 20 years ago, so it’s not an open wound, but it rekt my extended family, so definitely a vicious scar.

I had two much older sisters who were close in age and a “little” brother who is a smidgen younger than me but has been bigger than me since kindergarten.

When I was around 10, one of my sisters and her husband picked out a little piece of land, bought a log cabin kit, and built their home themselves. I remember playing with Tonka trucks with my brother and nephew in the area where the basement was poured and walking through the interior walls when they were just studs. Because my sister was obsessed with holidays and having everyone together and making everything Martha Stewart perfect, every family gathering happened in that house – from the time it was finished enough to host everyone, until her wake.

I lived out of state when she died suddenly, so I dropped everything, moved back, and lived with her husband and kids for a few weeks to help. I had cats and their dogs wanted to eat them, so I got an apartment a couple towns over, and my mom took over helping my sister’s widower with the kids.

I have barely been back to my sister’s cabin in the 20+ years since. It had been the site of all family holiday celebrations, but after my sister died, my mom hosted those at her house instead. I got into a huge verbal altercation* (that almost became physical) with my remaining sister at Christmas a couple years later, so I stopped going to family gatherings.

I have barely seen my brother-in-law or nephews since then. He stopped inviting me to their birthday parties etc, presumably because it was more important for my sister to be there. (She and the dead one were closest in age, had kids of similar age, and they had had a very close relationship.) If he’s even met my son, it’s only been in passing at my mom’s.

My mom almost died just before the holidays a couple years ago, and my estranged sister showed up at the hospital while I was there, so we just put things aside because it’s rude to fight in the ICU. I’ve had to just expect that there’s a good chance that she will be there any time I go see my family. Nothing is resolved and it probably never will be.*

My little brother texted me a week ago Saturday, and it was pretty out of the blue and shocking:

[Brother-in-law] is building a new house on his property for himself. The other house is big and expensive for him to maintain and is worth allot so he sold it. He’s staying on the property, just moving to a different side of it. He asked that any of us that wanted to go through the stuff there that was [Dead Sister]'s, like nic nacs and stuff. He said there’s like a months time before he’s gotta start trashing anything left. He said there’s some furniture too

It never occurred to me that he might sell that house. I fully expected he would build another, smaller one someday or maybe even move away from that neighborhood, but that one of my nephews would live in the big one. He has (had?) a lot of money and it had been so long, I just (stupidly!) thought it was settled. But maybe he’s sick, maybe my nephews don’t want to live there, maybe he just can’t look at her cabin anymore now that he can live somewhere else.

And the reality of the situation didn’t sink in for me until yesterday afternoon. It was conceivable that he might someday sell the house and land together and another family would live there; it is so hard to grasp that the cabin itself is leaving. I think I’m realizing that in my heart, I have never thought of her grave as her real resting site. That cabin is the tomb of my sister’s spirit, and I’m devastated to know that someone will come and take it apart and take it away.

I don’t want to go pick out pieces to bring home – I want the whole thing to stay there, intact forever. If her cabin stays there, intact forever, then part of her never died and never will.

I know that’s ridiculous and unreasonable. I know this is an incredibly privileged thing to be sad about – oh waa waaa waaaaaa, it’s been 20 years and you have to take your husband’s truck to your dead sister’s house to go accumulate more prized possessions, and you even have the foreknowledge and time and resources to do it and somewhere to put the stuff? please, cry more – but it kinda feels like finding out she’s dead all over again, and yes, I will go cry more.

(* - I’ll explain if you’re curious, but this was too long already.)