Transforming sorrow to beauty

This is for my sister.

You might think this is a story about death, but it is a story about life!

I’m feeling nauseous and dizzy, and it takes me a great amount of willpower to move my legs. I’m on my way to the hospital to say goodbye to my sister.

Before entering her room, I notice that I’ve stopped breathing. My mind seems to think that if I breath, this becomes real. If I don’t, maybe it’s not. But I have to breath, so I exhale, let go and walk up to the bed.

A wave of sorrow, strong like a tsunami hits my system and there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. I can only be by her side and let it wash over me. I know I will live through it, I’ve been here before. Next to the bed of close family moving on. I grew up in a loving family of seven. In the last ten years we've reduced to three. It doesn’t get easier, just familiar.

I also know there is no way I would like her to continue. The pain in her body is to severe.

The disease has moved quick. Seven months ago, she told me she felt something wasn’t right with her body. She had seen two doctors and now she was to meet a third and be insistent about a thorough examination. She was right, there was a toxic disease growing inside.

A few years back I had a friend who called me and said he had just been to the doctors with what he thought was a cold. It wasn’t, it was lung cancer and they gave him six months to live. He held on for three years. So, when she said the doctor had been pessimistic with her time, I still kept my hope.

It is a heart-breaking moment when your hope and prayers shift from;

-I hope she will live to -I hope it will go quick.

So here we are, at the hospital, not much time left.

I am holding on to your hand, trying to catch the tail of the tsunami-of-sorrow that I know will follow. A tail that transforms sadness to love. A tail that fills me with beautiful memories, with warmth and gratitude for all the time we have hade together. For all the times you listened, gave advice, shared a laugh and made me feel loved, inspired and safe. My big hearted big sister.

It to washes over me in this surreal moment. It’s is almost as if we stop time and life itself and take a step out into another world. A world within our hearts, where there is peace and understanding. Here we know this is not the end but a part of eternity. Here is no sadness only love and universal connection.

This is what I want to share. The poetic beauty that also shows up in moments of life and death, if we let it. The beauty of life’s fragility, our experiences and growth, life’s intensity, it's peaceful moments, its possibilities, people we meet, places we see, dreams we dream and nature surrounding us with an unapologetic splendour. But most of all the beauty of Love we can feel for one another. It is something that goes beyond dimensions. To remember and be aware of all this.

In our busy day, connected to computers, filling our life with activities, we sometimes forget to stop and allow the beauty of life come to us, connect and lead the way. Instead we try to control life by controlling our hours.

Life is magical when we allow it to happen. When we accept it as it is and move with it instead of trying to force it. Even in moments like this. There is a still and quite presence of being connected to a strong force of life that can change our day in a second. We might cry and be sad, that’s part of it.

But please don’t close your heart, your body, your emotions or will to move on. It might feel like it all shuts down, like we can’t breathe but we will.

My sister said a few days back, -You know Maria, in the eyes of death, looking back life is so much easier than we make it.

I agree. We get caught up in our mind of how we think it should be instead of letting life move us forward in its magnificent capacity. When we accept life as it is, then we can relax, breath and show up with an open and willing heart, even if the moment is hard.

I understand that in a lot of situations it feels unfair and unwarranted when adversities hits us. I agree but what is even more unwarranted is if we don’t make the most of our lives., the moments when we for example are not in a room next to someone dying.

When we allow the balance of both sides to exist, when we take a deep breath and move through, we will arrive to a beautiful other side.

Today I send my love and heart to anyone going through rough times right now or further along the way. I know how you feel.

I'll ask you to remember we are all connected, and while you still are breathing see if you can find the string of beauty and light. It will come, if you allow it even if it takes some time and starts off as sorrow.

Finally my beloved sister, I kept on breathing because I could, you stopped because you couldn’t. Right now, what we have left is love.

Lotta RIP

Always loved, remembered and connected to,

Fuck Cancer!

Your Sister