July 24, 2011

One year ago, July 24, 2011. This was the last time I spent quality time with my sister. I went home to see her in August when she was in the hospital and when she went back home, but hospitals and hospice don't count as quality time.

My visit home that weekend was for a job site visit and also for a meetup with some of my knitting friends in Boston. I was able to extend my trip for some quality time in Worcester with Megan. After my visit to the job site, we spent the day together. We were sitting on her couch and she talked on the phone with a nurse to discuss results of a recent scan. There was progression in her tumor and the nurse quoted the size of her tumor and we pulled out a ruler...it seemed huge. Like the size of a football. It wasn't a solid mass, but those were approximately the largest dimensions. She was pretty upset, as I'm sure anyone who hears this kind of news is. I had no idea what to do or say. 

We went to pick up her CSA, to Trader Joe's to shop for dinner that night, and then she took me to Moe's. I remember her not being able to eat a lot. She had lost a lot of weight, mostly because her tumor was pressing against her stomach and she felt really full a lot of the time. At Moe's we had a conversation about true friends...how when she got sick many of her friends had dropped off the map, they were busy with their own things, but the true friends stayed. We talked about how she might go out on disability, so she could enjoy herself with her time left. To remember this conversation breaks my heart. Two sisters in their 20s should not have to have this conversation. It really scared me. In the past we had talked about her cancer and even after she was diagnosed with the liver metastasis we would discuss the fact that she was terminal and that she wouldn't be around forever. I just never thought it would be so soon. But it really started to feel real and imminent. I wonder if she knew how close. 

That night she made a hippie dinner with items from her CSA, for me, my Mom, and her friends Jeanette and Sarah. She made us hippie hot dogs, beets, and other vegetables. It was Sarah's first time having beets, Megan liked to refer to herself as the beet ambassador :)  I remember Jeanette brought flowers and Megan told Sarah and Jeanette about the call from the nurse that day. That the tumor had progressed and she was going to have to try something new. During the night I heard her wincing a few times in pain. She seemed to be having some shoulder pain and difficulty sleeping. That was really hard for me to hear--I was completely helpless. I had lived away from home since her initial diagnosis. I visited her and she visited me throughout her treatments, but I always learned everything through a filter. This was really the first time I saw and heard her in pain. 

Then I went to Boston to be with some knitting friends. I felt kind of terrible the whole time and I'm sure I wasn't the best company. I felt selfish. Megan and I had talked clearly in the past about her end of life, but it all seemed very real. I felt terrible spending time with my friends instead of her. In fact looking back I just feel so incredibly selfish for every time I bogged her down with things that were going on with me instead of listening to her. I regret that there aren't more pictures of us together. I feel sad there wasn't more time. But she came into Boston on Sunday July 24 to spend time with me and some of my knitting friends got to meet her. I can't remember where we went but we both had raspberry lime rickeys, I was knitting on my Wispy Cardigan and she was knitting her Aidez sweater. It was just the last time I got to see her in her element, not in the hospital, not dying. 

I don't know what I think about all this, except that it still just doesn't feel real. I don't know what lessons there are to learn, what it all means, there just are no answers. There are a now a limited amount of things I have from her. My favorite knitting project bag is one she made me from whale fabric she bought at Gather Here in Boston. But every time I look at it, I get a mix of happy and sad. Part of me is scared to use it, I might wear it out or lose it. I will never again receive another hand-sewed item, we'll never talk about knitting again, or running, or go to a Red Sox game together. The things, the memories, they're finite and there won't be any more new ones. Everything we did the last time I spent time with Megan was completely ordinary, but I just feel like I need to remember all of the facts, everything I can, because you never know when what you do will be the last time you do it.